•so 


REESE    LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY   OF    CALIFORNIA. 

Received. 
Accessions  No. 


<? 

Shelf  No, 


Red  indicates-  Cotton,  lands  of  tfic 

btjtt  quality. 

Yellow  tndioatff  second 

Cotton  land's  producing  three  hund 

red  Ibs.  per  acre  and 

'  indicates  Zand&  which/ pro. 
(luce  little  or  TW  Cotton. 


Tke*ve  colors  are  riot  intended 


\ 

uality  of  the  land,  for  exam  .  \ 
ile:  many  creek  vottomJs  in  the     \- 
iart  marked  'green,  produce  same  \ 

,  &  oftfa-  Gifrfctjcz  colored. 
considerable  tracts  are,  often 
water. 


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COTTON    CULTURE 


BY 

JOSEPH    B.    LYMAN, 

<  \ 

LATE    OF    LOUISIANA. 


WITH   AX  ADDITIONAL   CHAPTER   ON 

COTTON   SEED  AND   ITS   USES. 

BY 

J.  R.  SYPHER. 


L  I  B  R  A  R  Y 

UNIVKKSITV   OF 


&    COMPANY 


245    BROADWAY. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1868,  by 
ORANGE  JUDD  &  CO. 


At  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the 
Southern  District  of  New-York. 


LIBRARY 

XI  V  Kit  S.IT  Y   OF 

CALIFORNIA 


, 


PREFACE. 


This  Treatise  is  not  a  compilation. 

Agricultural  literature  is  by  no  means  so  rich  in  valua- 
ble works  on  the  Cotton  Plant,  that  it  is  possible  to  select 
from  existing  writings  the  information  which,  however 
skillfully  grouped,  can  make  an  excellent  book. 

Twelve  years  of  experience  among  the  cotton  growers 
of  the  Southwest  have  been  found  by  the  author  of  vastly 
more  importance  to  the  proper  understanding  of  the  whole 
subject,  than  all  which  has  been  written. 

Of  what  has  been  before  given  to  the  world  on  the  sub- 
ject, I  have  found  no  matter  more  valuable  than  the  letters 
of  Dr.  Cloud,  of  Alabama,  who  did  more  for  the  true  and 
scientific  culture  of  the  plant,  than  all  the  other  Southern 
writers  put  together. 

His  views,  and  those  of  that  Bayou  Sara  planter  who 
wrote  an  admirable  letter  to  De  Bow's  Review  on  the 
Cotton-worm,  have  been  freely  quoted.  Some  useful 
statistics  are  to  be  found  in  the  New  American  Cyclopae- 
dia, under  the  head  of  Cotton,  and  these,  as  well  as  other 
tables,  have  been  studied.  The  writer  would  also  express 
his  obligations  to  Mr.  Edward  Atkinson,  of  Boston,  whose 
lecture  before  the  Geographical  Society  of  New  York  is 
rich  in  valuable  conclusions. 

But  whatever  is  of  most  worth  in  the  pages  that  follow, 
is  the  result  of  personal  observation,  and  of  frequent  and 
lengthy  conversations  with  the  most  successful  and  the 
:most  intelligent  cultivators  of  the  great  staple, 
3 


A  TREATISE  ON  COTTON  CULTME, 


OF1    CONTENTS. 

PART    I. 

WHERE    AND     HOW   THE   PLANT    IS    RAISED.  -  A    SERIES    OP 

PRACTICAL    DIRECTIONS   AS    TO   THE    ESTABLISHED 

ANNUAL   ROUTINE   IN   COTTON  PLANTING. 

CHAPTER     I. 

THE  COTTON  FARM.  —  ITS  STOCK,  IMPLEMENTS,  AND  LABORERS 

The  Climate  for  Cotton.  Geographical  Boundaries  of  the  Cotton  Zone. 
Soils  Best  Suited  to  Cotton  Growing1.  Draft  Animals  Required  by  the 
Planter.  Plows,  Wagons,  Laborers,  Milk  ....................  p.p.  9  —  16 

CHAPTER     II. 

PREPARATION  OP  THE   SOIL  AND  PLANTING. 

Time  for  Plowing  ;  Manner  of  Plowing.  Laying-off  the  Cotton  Beds. 
Time  for  Planting.  Varieties  of  Seed.  Errors  in  Keeping  Seed.  Im- 
mediate Preparation  for  and  Manner  of  Planting.  Amount  of  Seed  Re- 
quired. Advantages  of  Precision  in  Making  the  Rows.  The  Old  Mode 
of  Planting.  Improved  Cotton  Planter.  Preparation  of  the  Seed  for 
Planting  ....................................................  p.p.  16—23 

CHAPTER     III. 

HOW  THE  CROP  IS  TO  BE  CULTIVATED. 

First  Appearance  of  the  Plant.  "Chopping  Out."  Hoeing,  Rapid 
Movement  Required.  Attention  to  Corn.  Amount  of  Moisture  Re- 
quired by  Cotton.  Lice  Bred  by  Excess  of  Moisture  and,  at  a  Later 
Stage,  Rust.  Remedy  for  these  Evils.  Proper  Shape  of  Plows  for  Cotr 
ton.  The  Eagle  Plow  or  Sweep.  Frequency  of  Going  Over  the  Crop. 
Time  of  First  Blooms  on  Cotton  ;  Description  of  Bloom  ;  the  "  Forms." 
Effects  of  Great  Excess  of  Moisture,  etc.  Continued  Heat  at  this 
Stage.  When  Plowing  should  be  Discontinued.  Summary  of  the  Old 
Routine.  Modification  of  this  Routine.  Care  for  the  Laborer  and  his 
Mule.  Improvement  on  the  Old  Modes.  The  Shanghai  Plow.  Sum- 
mary of  the  Best  Mode  of  Planting  and  Cultivating  the  Cotton 
Crop  ......................................................  p.p.  23—35 

4 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER      IV. 

COTTON  PICKING. 

Time  of  Commencing.  Utensils  and  Preparation.  Picking  M^ 
Done  Mainly  by  Hand.  Slow  and  Fast  Picking ;  Conveniences  and  En- 
couragements. Health  of  Field  Laborers.  Sorting  and  Trashing  of  the 
Cotton.  Four  Grades.  Economy  of  Time  and  Labor  in  Handling  the 
Crop.  The  Picking  Season ;  its  Length.  Task  Work.  Weight  of  Lint 
as  Compared  with  Unginned  Cotton p.p.  36 — 15 

CHAPTER     V. 

GINNING,   BALING,   AND  MARKETING. 

Principle  of  the  Whitney  Gin ;  Description  of  Its  Parts.  The  Gin- 
house.  Plans  of  First  and  Second  Stories.  The  Drying  Scaffold.  Im- 
provements Suggested.  The  Old  Wooden  Packing-box  and  Screw. 
Cost  of  Bad  Packing.  Cut  and  Description  of  an  Improved  Press.  The 
Iron  Hoop.  Honor  and  Reliability  in  Putting  up  a  Crop.  The  Planter 
should  be  a  Judge  of  the  Market.  Speedy  and  Direct  Communication 
between  Producer  and  Consumer p.p.  45 — 59 

CHAPTER      VI. 

THE  COTTON  PLANTERS'  CALENDAB. 

January.—  The  Gin ;  the  Market ;  Pressing.  Clearing  off  the  Fields. 
Filling  up  Washes  and  Gulches.  Taking  Care  of  Seed  Cotton.  Using 
the  Remainder  of  the  Cotton  Seed  for  Manure. 

February. — About  Time  to  Commence  Plowing.  Plan  and  Prepare 
for  Another  Crop ;  Cut  Wood ;  Haul  out  Manure ;  Decide  on  Rotation 
of  Crops ;  "  Bedding  Up  "  for  the  Rows.  Oats. 

Jfarch.'—The  Garden ;  Melons ;  Plantation  Roads  ;  Circle  Ditching 
and  Circle  Plowing ;  Beginning  to  Plant. 

April.— Careful  Planting;  First  Going  Over;  the  Shanghai  Plow; 
Cutting  Away  to  a  Stand. 

May.— Another  Thorough  Working ;  Best  Mode  of  Plowing  between 
Cotton  Rows  ;  the  Sweep ;  Importance  of  Good  Plowing. 

June. — Cultivation  Varies  Somewhat  with  the  Season  and  Moisture ; 
Caring  for  the  Well-being  of  Man  and  Beast  in  the  Field. 

July. — Last  Working  in  Advanced  Crop ;  Fodder  Pulling ;  Drink  for 
Field  Hands ;  Effect  of  Fodder  Pulling  upon  the  Grain. 

August. — Picking  at  Hand;  Advance  of  the  Enemies  of  Cotton ;  How 
to  Fight  the  Army-worm ;  the  Caterpillar  or  Cotton-moth ;  How  to  De- 
stroy them. 

September.—  The  Picking  to  be  Pushed ;  Care  for  the  Hands  ;  Coffee  in 
the  Morning. 

October.— Keeping  up  the  Spirits ;  Sorting  Cotton ;  the  Trasher. 


VI  COTTON   CULTURE. 

November, — Avoid  Night  Work ;  Ginning ;  Cotton  Should  Lie  for  a 
Time  in  the  Seed. 

December. — Gathering  of  other  Crops ;  Hauling  Cotton  to  Market ; 
Clearing  the  Fields  for  the  following  Crop p.  p.  59—68 


PART    II. 

CHAPTER     I. 

QUALITY,   EXTENT,   AND  CHARACTERISTICS  OF   THE  COTTON  LANDS 
OF   NORTH  AMERICA. 

Boundaries  of  the  Cotton  Belt.  Which  are  the  Cotton  States  ?  Texas : 
Extent  and  Character  of  its  Cotton  Lands ;  Soil  and  Climate  described ; 
Valley  of  the  Brazos ;  Black  Prairies  ;  Valleys  of  other  Rivers  in  Texas. 
Louisiana  and  Arkansas  :  their  Cotton  Fields ;  the  Washita  Lands ; 
Cotton  South  of  Red  River,  and  North  of  the  Arkansas.  Mississippi : 
Its  Alluvial  Lauds ;  Cotton  Planting  in  the  Hills  ;  the  Tombigbee  Lands. 
Alabama :  Its  Alluvial  and  Black  Cane  Brake  Lands  ;  Extent  and  Fertil- 
ity of  its  Richest  Fields.  Georgia :  its  Three  Divisions,  Southern,  Mid- 
dle, and  Northern  ;  Climate  and  Soil  of  each  ;  the  Facilities  for  Cotton 
Growing.  South  Carolina:  Three  General  Classes  of  Lands  as  in 
Georgia  ;  the  Best  Cotton  Lands  ;  Inferior  Lands.  North  Carolina  and 
Tennessee :  the  Limited  Region  in  these  States  where  Cotton  is  Grown ; 
Cotton  north  of  38° ;  Principal  Dates  in  a  Cotton  Crop ;  Effect  of  Short- 
ening the  Season ;  the  Experiment  of  1862 p.p.  69 — 84 

CHAPTER     II. 

ENEMIES  AND   DISEASES   OF    COTTON. 

The  Cotton-louse  and  How  to  Get  Rid  of  it.  The  Cut-worm;  How  to 
Prevent  his  Ravages.  The  Cotton-moth  or  Caterpillar ;  its  Fearful  Rav- 
ages Described.  Full  Account  of,  arid  Description  of  the  Insect  in  its  Dif- 
ferent Forms ;  two  Modes  of  Attacking  it.  Effect  of  Rotation  of  Crops ; 
Manner  in  which  it  Destroys  itself;  Conclusions  with  Regard  to  it.  The 
Army-worm ;  Compared  with  the  Caterpillar ;  How  to  Arrest  its  March ; 
Army-worm  Described.  Boll-worm  ;  Peculiarities  of  this  Insect ;  the 
Moth  described ;  Manner  and  Place  of  Laying  Eggs  ;  Appearance  of  the 
Worm ;  Mischief  it  Produces ;  How  to  Get  Rid  of  it ;  Modes  of  extermi- 
nating the  Moth.  Diseases  of  Cotton :  Rust ;  What  Produces  it ;  Sore 
Shiu  ;  Rot,  or  Gangrene.  Blue  Cotton p.p.  84 — 100 

CHAPTER     III. 

IMPROVED  AND   SCIENTIFIC   CULTURE  OF   COTTON. 

Reasons  for  the  unskillful  Manner  in  which  Cotton  has  generally  been 
Raised.  The  Preservation  and  Restoration  of  Cotton  Lands  Depends  on 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS.  VH 

Two  Practices:  Circle  Plowing  and  Ditching,  and  Manuring.  The 
Amount  to  which  Uplands  in  Cotton  Deteriorate  by  Washing.  The 
First  Practice  of  Circle  Plowing.  Circle  Ditching ;  Detailed  Instruc- 
tions. Fertilizing  Properties  Removed  from  the  Soil  by  Cotton.  Anal- 
ysis of  the  Lint  and  of  the  Seed.  Fertilizers  which  Best  Restore  the 
Elements  Abstracted.  Best  Manure  for  Cotton  Lands  :  Guano.  Cotton 
Should  not  be  Manured  in  the  Drill.  Dr.  Cloud  and  his  Improved  Cul- 
ture. Reasons  for  not  Manuring  in  the  Hill.  "High  Farming"  in 
Connection  with  Cotton ;  what  it  Consists  in.  The  proper  Rotation  of 
Crops  on  a  Cotton  Farm.  Most  Suitable  Arrangements  for  Making 
Large  Amounts  of  Manure ;  Best  Method  of  Applying  it.  Mode  of  Cul- 
tivation that  Should  Follow  ;  the  Results.  Cotton  Seed  Better  as  a  Ma- 
nure the  Second  Year  than  the  First.  The  Length  of  Time  for  which  this 
High  Manuring  is  Felt  Contrast  between  "High"  and  "Low  Farm- 
ing" in  Cotton.  Jmprovement  of  the  Seed  by  the  Use  of  Fertilizers ; 
Gypsum  to  be  Applied  with  Guano p.p.  100 — 119 

CHAPTER     IV. 

VARIOUS  KINDS  OF  COTTON  CULTIVATED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

Upland  and  Sea  Island.  Mexican  Seed,  how  Introduced.  Petit  Gulf 
Seed,  and  "Why  so  Called.  Prices  at  which  Improved  Varieties  Sell. 
Methods  of  Improving  any  Seed ;  Something  Depends  on  Locality.  Va- 
rious Seeds  Developed  from  the  Mexican  and  Petit  Gulf.  Mr.  Phillips 
on  the  Varieties  of  Cotton  Seed.  Manner  in  which  Choice  Varieties  De- 
teriorate ;  "Banana"  and  "Mastodon"  instanced;  Five  Conclusions 
on  the  Subject.  Sea  Island  Cotton ;  its  Average  Yield  and  Price.  Sea 
Island  Cotton  described ;  Time  when  it  Began  to  be.Cultivated ;  Results 
of  an  Analysis  of  Sea  Island  Cotton  and  Soil ;  how  Cultivated ;  Method 
of  Ginning  and  Preparing  for  Market.  Mr.  Chichester's  Invention.  The 
Largest  Crop  of  Sea  Island.  Other  Statistics p.p.  119—132 

CHAPTER     V. 

HOW     TO     REALIZE     THE    MOST     FROM    A    CROP;     SUGGESTIONS    AS     TO 
THE  UNION  OF  THE  GROWING  OF  COTTON  "WITH    ITS  MANU- 
FACTURE INTO  YARNS  AND  FABRICS. 

No  probability  that  the  South  will  ever  Manufacture  All  the  Cotton 
she  Grows.  A  Plan  Suggested  for  Manufacturing :  One  Large,  Central 
Factory  in  every  Town  or  Township ;  Machinery  Driven  by  Steam  ; 
Facilities  for  Ginning,  Packing,  and  Manufacturing  Enough  Cloth  for 
that  Community.  Ground  Plan  of  such  Factory  with  Oil-mill  Attached ; 
the  Bagging  also  to  be  Made  there  from  the  Trashy  Cotton.  Advantages 
of  the  Plan  Proposed.  Perfection  of  Ginning  and  Baling.  Modifica- 
tions of  the  Proposed  Plan  for  Different  Localities.  Associated  Capital 
Compared  with  Individual  Enterprise.  The  Plan  Proposed  Adapted  to 
the  Small  Producer.  Question  of  Operatives p.p.  133—141 


VIII  COTTOX   CULTURE. 

CHAPTER     VI. 

OF  THE  VALUE  OF   COTTON  AS  A  PLANT,   AND    THE  USES  TO  WHICH 
IT  MAT  BE  APPLIED. 

Cheapness  of  Cotton  as  an  Article  of  Clothing.  Cotton  for  Ropes ; 
as  a  Material  for  Beds ;  as  a  Material  for  Bed-Covers ;  Cotton  Blankets. 
The  Comfoj-ts  that  Two  Bales  of  Cotton  may  be  Made  to  Bring  into  One 
Family.  The  Possible  Employment  of  Cotton  as  a  Building  Material. 
Cotton-stalk  Hemp.  Cotton  Seed  as  Food  for  Animals;  as  Manure.  A 

Medicine  from  the  Root  of  the  Cotton  Plant.  .'. p.p.  141—149 

CHAPTER     VII. 

THE  PAST  AND  THE  FUTURE  OF  COTTON  ;   ITS  HISTORY  AND   STATISTICS. 

Cotton  Previous  to  the  Present  Century ;  no  Mention  of  it  in  the 
Earliest  Writings.  What  Herodotus  Says.  Cotton  Introduced  from  In- 
dia to  Rome.  Hindoo  Mode  of  Weaving ;  Wonderful  Delicacy  of  some 
of  their  Fabrics.  Difficulty  of  Producing  Large  Amounts  of  Cotton  in 
India.  Cotton  in  Egypt  and  Africa.  Early  Notices  of  Cotton  in  the 
New  World.  Its  Culture  in  the  West  Indies  and  Brazil.  First  Culture 
in  the  United  States.  Impetus  given  by  the  Invention  of  the  Gin.  An 
Account  of  the  Manner  in  which  Eli  Whitney  Made  the  Discovery ;  the 
Importance  of  his  Invention.  Statistical  Tables  as  to  Increase,  Amount, 
Price,  and  Total  Value  of  the  Various  Cotton  Crops  of  the  United  States. 
Five  Conclusions  with  Respect  to  the  Past  and  the  Future  of  Cotton  as 
Drawn  from  a  Study  of  the  Tables.  Views  Expressed  in  the  London 
Economist.  Question  of  Cotton  Supply  during  the  War.  ..pp.  149 — 164 
CHAPTER  VIII. 

PRACTICAL  SUGGESTIONS  TO  VARIOUS  CLASSES  OF  PERSONS  WHO 
PROPOSE  TO  ENGAGE  IN  COTTON  GROWING. 

Modes  of  Producing  Cotton  in  the  Future ;  Different  Classes  likely  to 
be  Engaged  in  it.  Suggestions  to  the  Large  Capitalist  and  Joint  Stock 
Companies  as  to  the  Best  Cotton  Lands ;  the  Advantages  and  Disadvan- 
tages of  Various  Sections  Examined.  The  Cotton  Fields  of  Alabama, 
Texas,  and  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  Considered.  Attractions  of  the 
Upland  Cotton  Fields ;  their  Desirableness  for  the  Farmer.  Middle 
Tennessee  Considered.  The  Northern  parts  of  Alabama  and  Georgia. 
North-western  Arkansas.  Northern  Texas.  The  Poor  Immigrant  will 
Go  where  he  can  Get  the  Highest  Wages  ;  with  Thrift  he  can  soon  Rise 
above  a  Hireling ;  Three  Simple  Rules  for  Keeping  his  Health.  Con- 
clusion  p.p.  164 — 179 

CHAPTER    IX. 

COTTON  SEED  OIL.   COTTON  SEED  CAKE. 

The  Discovery  of  Oil  in  Cotton  Seed.  Experiments.  Process  of 
Manufacture  of  Oil.  Difficulties  to  be  Overcome.  Seed  Hullers.  Ma- 
chinery Required  to  Express  Oil.  How  Oil  is  Expressed.  _  How  Refined. 
Its  Uses.  Cotton  Seed  Cake.  Its  Value  in  Stock-feeding.  As  a  Fertil- 
izer. Ashes  of  the  Hulls p.p.  380—190 


A   TREATISE    ON   COTTON    CULTURE. 


.PART    I. 

WHERE  AND  HOW  THE  PLANT  IS  RAISED.— A  SERIES 

OF  PRACTICAL  DIRECTIONS  AS  TO  THE  ESTABLISHED 

ANNUAL  ROUTINE  IN  COTTON  PLANTING. 

CHAPTER    I. 

THE  COTTON  FARM;  ITS  STOCK,  IMPLEMENTS  AND 
LABORERS. 

Two  general  considerations  must  be  regarded  in  ap- 
proaching the  business  of  cotton  producing ;  one  that  of 
climate,  the  other  of  the  soil. 

The  natural  demands  of  the  plants  are  for  a  tropical  or 
semi-tropical  climate  that  affords  seven  or  eight  months 
entirely  secure  from  frosts.  In  the  United  States  cotton 
is  produced  in  all  the  belt  that  reaches  from  40°  north 
latitude  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  A  line  drawn  westward 
from  Philadelphia  divides  that  part  of  the  country  where 
cotton  will,  in  various  degrees,  reward  the  labor  of  culti- 
vation from  those  where  its  production  is  hopeless. 

But  in  the  upper  part  of  that  belt,  between  36°  and  40°, 
it  is  an  exotic,  more  than  half  its  productive  power  being 
9  1* 


10  COTTON   CULTURE. 

entirely  cut  away  by  a  damp  and  chilly  April,  and  a  frosty 
October.  The  superiority  of  the  lands  of  the  Southern 
States  of  North  America  is  due  less  to  soil  than  to  climate. 
In  the  relations  of  the  mountains  to  the  sea  and  of  the 
Great  Valley  to  the  Gulf,  into  which  its  waters  pour,  is 
to  be  found  the  true  secret  of  the  rapid  ascent  of  cotton 
to  a  great  commercial  and  political  power.  This  was  very 
aptly  stated  by  a  recent  lecturer  before  the  American 
Geographical  Society  in  terms  substantially  as  follows : 

"  The  peculiar  climate  of  the  Cotton  States  I  understand 
to  be  produced  by  the  chain  of  mountains  which  intersects 
our  country,  the  lower  spurs  of  the  Alleghany  range 
passing  off  westward  in  the  hills  of  northern  Georgia,  Ala- 
bama, and  Mississippi. 

"  On  these  the  moisture  brought  inland  by  the  sea- 
breezes  from  the  Gulf  and  Gulf-stream  is  condensed,  and 
falls  in  many  showers,  but  not  often  in  long  storms ;  these 
showers  occur  frequently  in  spring,  but  rarely  in  midsum- 
mer and  autumn,  thus  giving  dry  seasons  for  gathering  the 
crop.  After  it  has  attained  a  vigorous  growth,  the  cotton 
plant  may  defy  the  drouth,  for  by  means  of  a  long  tap- 
root it  lives  upon  the  moisture  accumulated  beneath  the 
surface  during  the  winter  and  spring  rains." 

A  line  drawn  from  Raleigh  westward  through  Nashville, 
and  continued  into  the  northern  part  of  Arkansas  has, 
until  of  late,  been  regarded  as  the  true  northern  limit  of 
the  cotton  belt,  south  of  which  it  is,  even  at  ten  cents  a 
pound,  the  most  valuable  crop  that  can  be  produced. 

There  are  some  good  cotton  lands  in  North  Carolina, 
but  that  State  has  never  been  a  large  producer  of  the  staple. 
Many  of  its  river  bottoms  are  too  wet  and  heavy,  and  most 
of  its  uplands  are  too  poor. 

West  of  the  mountains  very  little  has  ever  been  grown 
in  the  valleys  of  the  upper  Tennessee.  But  descending  that 
tortuous  stream,  and  passing  west  of  Chattanooga  into 
northern  Alabama  and  western  Tennessee,  we  come  into 


COTTON   CULTURE.  11 

a  region  quite  favorable  to  its  growth,  and  in  the  section 
lying  between  the  Tennessee  and  Cumberland,  and  drained 
by  the  Duck  and  Elk  rivers,  it  has,  in  about  half  the 
counties,  been  for  many  years  the  staple. 

In  the  northern  part  of  those  valleys,  below  Fort  Donel- 
son,  its  production  gives  place  to  tobacco.  With  the 
exception  of  these  parts  of  Tennessee,  and  the  south-eastern 
half  of  Arkansas,  the  Cotton  States  all  touch  the  ocean  or 
the  Gulf.  The  thirty-second  degree,  or  a  line  drawn  across 
the  Gulf  States  through  Montgomery  and  Jackson,  is  the 
centre  of  the  cotton  belt.  For  a  hundred  miles  each  side 
of  that  parallel,  north  and  south,  and  especially  in  the  lands 
bordering  on  the  lower  half  of  all  the  affluents  of  the  Gulf 
and  the  southern  tributaries  of  the  Mississippi,  cotton  is 
produced  to  an  extent,  and  of  a  quality  surpassed  by  no 
other  equal  area  of  the  earth's  surface.  This  is  its  natural 
home ;  here  is  its  chosen  domain.  For  cotton  is  essentially 
a  child  of  the  sun.  It  does  not  rejoice  in  copious  moisture, 
and  can  thrive  and  come  to  perfection  on  less  rain  than  any 
plant  cultivated  on  the  continent. 

There  are  three  classes  of  soil  well  suited  to  cotton. 
First,  the  soft  argillaceous  limestone,  or  what  is  called  the 
rotten  limestone  and  red  lands  of  Georgia,  South  Carolina, 
parts  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi,  and  a  small  part  of 
Texas. 

This  description  of  soil  is  soft,  fine  and  friable,  easily 
washed  away,  nearly,  and  in  many  parts  entirely  free  from 
stones.  The  descents  to  streams  are  steep,  but,  in  general, 
such  soil  is  spread  over  an  undulating  surface,  about  half 
of  which  should  be  protected  from  washing  by  the  winter 
rains  with  a  system  of  circle  ditching  or  circle  ploughing. 
The  growth  on  such  lands  is  beech,  magnolia,  white  and 
red  oak,  and  some  pine  on  the  swells,  with  gum  and  enor- 
mous poplars  on  the  creek  bottoms.  From  1840  to  1850 
probably  two-thirds  or  three-fourths  of  all  the  cotton  pro- 
duced grew  on  land  of  this  description.  For  the  ten  years 


12  COTTON    CULTURE. 

preceding  the  war,  there  was  a  strong  tendency  among  all 
the  cotton  planters  to  transfer  their  labor  to  alluvial 
lands. 

The  second  class  of  cotton  soils  are  the  rich  black  cane- 
brake  lands  of  middle  Alabama  and  the  black  rolling 
prairies  of  Texas.  These  are  generally  called  the  black 
lands,  and  cannot  be  surpassed  by  any  alluvions  for  the 
certainty  with  which  they  produce  crops,  their  freedom 
from  destructive  vermin,  the  admirable  roll  of  the  surface 
just  sufficient  for  drainage,  and  the  completeness  with 
which  every  square  yard  of  the  soil  may  be  turned  under 
the  plow.  In  winter,  the  roads  through  this  class  of 
lands  become  immense  black  mortar  beds,  where  a  loaded 
wagon  sinks  nearly  to  the  axle,  and  six  mules  can  hardly 
pull  four  bales,  but  in  spring  these  formidable  sloughs 
harden,  and  become  polished  under  the  wheel,  so  as  to 
afford  for  eight  months  of  the  year  a  road  as  firm,  smooth, 
and  agreeable  as  it  is  horrible  during  the  remaining  four. 

Another  discount  on  these  regions  is  the  badness  of  the 
water.  In  general,  however,  such  lands  are  considered 
worth  twice  as  much  as  the  former  or  red  hill  countries. 
In  1860  the  price  of  the  former  ranged  from  ten  to  thirty 
dollars  per^acre,  according  to  the  degree  to  which  they 
were  washed  or  exhausted,  nearness  to  markets  and  towns, 
excellence  of  buildings,  and  state  offences. 

The  black  lands  of  middle  Alabama,  between  the  Tom- 
bigbee  and  the  Alabama  rivers,  were  seldom  sold  at  less 
than  fifty  dollars,  and  the  price  ranged  from  that  to  one 
hundred.  Now,  (1867,)  large  surfaces  are  in  market  at 
r.bout  half  the  price  they  commanded  before  the  war. 

The  alluvions  or  river  bottoms  are  the  third  and  most 
valuable  class  of  cotton  lands.  Like  river  bottoms  every- 
where, the  valleys  of  the  Santee,  the  Chattahoochee,  the 
Alabama  and  Tombigbee,  the  Pearl,  and,  beyond  all,  the 
cast  areas  drained  by  the  Mississippi  and  its  lower  tribut- 
aries have  very  little  inclination,  and  that  little  is  gener- 


COTTON   CULTURE.  13 

ally  away  from  the  bank  rather  than  towards  the  stream. 
But  the  soil  is  admirably  adapted  to  cotton  and  the  under- 
drain  is  such  as  to  compensate  for  the  flatness.  Successive 
overflows  haTe  deposited  an  exhaustless  bed  of  vegetable 
mould,  mixed  with  fine  sand  and  wash  from  the  hills, 
through  which  the  falling  rains  easily  pass  to  a  porous  sub- 
soil. 

In  dry  seasons,  a  copious  dew,  which  is  rapidly  evapo- 
rated by  the  hot  morning  sun,  drenches  the  plants.  The  low 
lands  are  covered  by  a  heavy  growth  of  gum,  magnolia, 
poplar  and  cypress,  with,  in  many  places,  a  thick  under- 
growth of  cane.  The  labor  of  clearing,  and  the  vegetable 
rniasins  of  swamp  lands,  render  them  less  desirable  for  per- 
manent residence  than  the  two  classes  above  described,  but 
their  exhaustless  fertility,  and  the  ease  with  which  great 
crops  can  be  marketed,  the  steamboat  in  thousands  of  cases 
coming  within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  the  gin  house,  can 
but  form  a  very  strong  attraction  to  every  enterprizing 
cultivator.  In  1860,  the  general  price  of  bottom  lands, 
cleared,  cultivated,  and  safe  from  overflow,  was  one 
hundred  dollars  per  acre. 

Suppose  now  a  person  has  a  capital  that  enables 
him  to  possess  and  cultivate  a  cotton  farm  of  two  hundred 
acres,  about  half  of  which  he  proposes  to  put  in  cotton, 
the  remainder  being  devoted  to  corn,  vegetable  garden, 
pasture,  and  woodland.  What  stock  and  implements,  and 
what  number  of  laborers  should  he  have  ? 

Of  draft  animals,  his  principal  demand  is  for  mules  or 
horses.  Oxen  are  too  slow  and  heavy  for  the  business, 
unless  it  be  in  the  fall,  in  hauling  long  distances  to  market 
or  a  shipping  point.  It  is  desirable  also  that  his  mules  be 
of  medium  size,  and  remarkable  for  a  fast  walk  above 
every  other  quality.  The  cultivation  of  cotton  requires 
rapid  movement  rather  than  strength.  Except  in  opening 
heavy  timbered  land,  weight  of  bone,  either  in  animals  or 
laborers,  is  unnecessary  and  frequently  objectionable. 


14  COTTON    CULTURE. 

Moderate  sized  mules,  rather  long-legged,  hardy,  and  not 
great  eaters,  are  the  best  on  a  plantation. 

On  account  of  their  greater  freedom  of  movement,  horses 
are  a  little  superior  to  mules,  but  they  are  more  apt  to 
break  down  in  the  long  hot  days  of  June  and  July,  when 
they  must  be  constantly  in  the  traces. 

A  mule  to  every  ten  acres  in  cotton  is  no  more  than  a 
proper  allowance.  On  the  place  supposed,  ten  mules  is  the 
complement.  Of  plows  there  will  be  required  two  kinds, 
one  for  breaking  up  and  forming  the  beds,  the  other  for 
subsequent  cultivation.  Heavy  plowing  is  seldom  called 
for  on  a  cotton  farm,  and  as  an  anomaly  in  agriculture, 
deep  plowing  between  the  rows  has  been  found  positively 
injurious.  The  reason  is  this  :  deep  cultivation  on  many 
soils  tends  to  develop  a  rank  growth  of  the  plant,  and  to 
retard  the  early  opening  of  bolls ;  and  cotton  can  be  suc- 
cessfully grown  only  by  a  treatment  that  pushes  the  plant 
to  an  early  maturity.  For  preparing  the  land,  four  or  five 
large  plows  will  be  required.  These  should  be  rather  broad 
than  deep,  with  the  moulding  board  well  rolled  over. 

Eight  or  more  small  plows  will  be  used  in  the  cultiva- 
tion. By  small  plows  is  meant  those  which  make  a  light 
furrow,  and  their  form  will  be  discussed  in  a  following 

7  O 

chapter.     Ten  hoes  will  be  needed,  and  three  or  four  small 
light  harrows. 

Arrangements  for  harvesting  the  crop  and  hauling  to 
market  vary  so  much  with  the  distances  from  the  gin 
house  and  the  shipping  point,  that  no  directions  can  be 
given  that  will  be  of  universal  application.  The  planter 
of  one  hundred  acres  may  need  no  high  box  wagons  for 
bringing  in  seed  cotton  from  the  field,  and  his  gin  house 
may  be  so  near  a  stream  that  the  bales  can  be  rolled 
directly  from  the  shed  to  the  deck  of  a  steamer.  Under 
advantageous  circumstances,  a  single  four-wheeled  wagon 
will  suffice  for  the  hauling  of  a  place  such  as  we  suppose. 


COTTOX   CULTURE.  15 

But  in  the  great  majority  of  situations  at  least  two  large 
wagons  will  be  found  necessary. 

A  gin  house  with  machinery  for  grinding  com  is  almost 
a  prime  necessity.  But  this  may  be  erected  in  the  interval 
between  laying  aside  the  crop  and  the  picking  season. 
August  is  not  generally  a  very  busy  month  on  a  cotton 
farm. 

As  to  the  laborers  on  a  place  of  the  size  supposed,  ten 
hands  is  the  average;  one  hand  to  ten  acres  in  cotton. 
Unless  the  surface  is  uncommonly  rough,,  and  the  season 
unfavorable,  a  good  hand  can  take  proper  care  of  ten  acres 
in  cotton,  and  five  in  corn,  besides  having  some  time  in  the 
garden.  But  in  the  picking  season,  it  is  very  desirable  to 
put  two  or  three  more  hands  into  the  field.  If  your  laud 
is  a  rich  bottom,  it  may  produce  six  hundred  pounds,  or  a 
bale  and  a  half  of  ginned  cotton  to  the  acre,  and  it  is  a 
very  smart  picker  that  can  get  out  fifteen  bales  in  a  season. 
Ten  bales  to  the  hand  is  always  good  work.  In  employing 
laborers,  regard  should  be  had  chiefly  to  their  capacity  as 
cotton  pickers,  and  here  the  difference  is  astonishing.  Two 
men  will  work  together  all  the  year,  a  match  for  each  other 
in  chopping,  splitting  rails,  plowing,  hoeing  and  harvesting 
corn,  yet  in  September,  when  they  go  into  the  cotton  field 
with  sacks  on  their  shoulders,  one  will  bring  out  two  hun- 
dred pounds,  and  the  other  one  hundred.  One  is  naturally 
quick  in  his  motions,  and  the  other,  though  a  faithful 
laborer  and  equally  assiduous,  cannot  "  get  the  knack  of 
it,"  and  though,  by  the  stimulus  of  extra  wages,  he  may 
come  up  to  a  hundred  and  fifty,  and  in  the  best  picking  to 
two  hundred,  he  will  never  overtake  his  comrade. 

In  this  respect,  women  are  better  than  men ;  as  a  rule 
they  make  the  best  pickers.  The  work  is  light,  though 
monotonous.  The  most  of  cotton  is  from  three  to  four 
feet  high,  and  many  bolls  are  but  a  few  inches  from  the 
ground,  hence  a  tall  person  works  at  a  disadvantage.  A 
man  about  five  feet  six  inches,  or  five  feet  eiirht  inches, 


16  COTTON   CULTURE. 

compactly  built,  is  likely  to  be  the  most  valuable  on  a 
cotton  farm,  because  he  will  prove  a  faster  picker  than  an 
athletic  man  of  brawny  frame  and  large  muscles. 

It  is  very  desirable  also  to  hire  laborers  that  are  accus- 
tomed to  cotton,  and  particularly  such  as  are  skillful  with 
the  plow.  A  man  that  understands  circle  plowing,  on  a 
hill  place,  that  can  carry  his  scooter,  his  sweep,  or  his 
cultivator  within  two  inches  of  a  row  of  young  plants,  yet 
never  break  or  uproot  one,  and  who  can  pick  rapidly  in 
the  fall,  is  worth  a  hundred  dollars  a  year  more  than  one 
who  understands  nothing  but  corn  or  wheat  and  tobacco, 
though  the  latter  may  "be  the  more  able  bodied  man  of  the 
two. 

Care  should  be  taken  to  have  an  abundance  of  milk. 
No  drink  is  so  grateful  to  the  heated  laborer,  who  passes 
the  whole  day  from  dawn  to  sunset  between  the  rows,  as 
buttermilk.  The  curd  it  contains  is  nourishing,  and  the 
acid  cooling.  Milk  in  every  form  in  which  it  can  be  taken, 
is  admirably  suited  to  the  farm  laborer,  and  in  stocking  a 
cotton  farm,  a  cow  to  every  three  or  four  persons  should  be 
provided. 


CHAPTER    II. 

PREPARATION  OF  THE  SOIL  AND  PLANTING. 

The  plows  should  be  started  just  as  early  in  the  spring 
as  the  season  will  permit.  In  the  latter  part  of  February, 
the  ground  in  the  hill  country  and  red  lands,  will  often  be 
found  dry  enough.  The  same  is  true  of  the  bottom  lands 
in  the  latitude  of  Yicksburg,  and  in  the  southern  counties 
of  South  Carolina  and  Georgia.  In  general,  it  may  be  said 
that  the  direct  preparation  for  a  crop  commences  with 
February.  The  first  plowing  depends  somewhat  upon  the 


COTTON   CULTURE.  17 

crop  of  the  previous  year.  If  the  breadth  was  planted  in 
cotton,  all  that  is  necessary  is  to  keep  a  hand  or  two  in  ad- 
vance of  the  plow,  with  hoes  or  clubs,  to  break  down  the 
old  cotton  stalks,  or  pull  them  up  by  the  roots,  and  throw 
them  into  piles  for  burning.  If  the  growth  is  not  very 
rank  they  had  better  be  plowed  in,  but  in  rich  bottoms, 
where  it  sometimes  attains  the  height  of  six  or  eight  feet, 
the  large  branching  stalks  are  unmanageable,  and  had 
better  be  burned.  Where  cotton  was  the  previous  crop, 
and  no  change  in  the  width  of  the  rows  is  desirable,  run 
a  small  furrow  between  the  ridges,  then  let  the  large  plow 
pass  on  the  middle  of  the  slope  of  each  row  or  ridge,  and 
throw  furrows  from  each  side  that  will  lap,  so  that  what 
was  a  "  middle  "  last  year  shall  be  a  row  this  year,  and 
vice  versa.  Where  the  previous  crop  was  corn,  and  it  be- 
comes necessary  to  change  the  width  of  the  rows,  and 
where  the  land  has  been  lying  out,  and  is  covered  with 
tall  weeds  and  sedge  grass,  a  different  course  is  to  be  pur- 
sued. The  rows  or  beds  are  laid  off  by  running  shallow 
furrows  at  the  proper  distances  apart.  These  distances  are 
to  be  determined  by  the  nature  of  the  soil,  say  five  and  a 
half  or  six  feet,  and  sometimes  seven  on  very  strong  bot- 
tom lands,  and  four  or  four  and  a  half  on  light  lands.  A 
good  plan  on  stubble,  corn,  or  fallow  land,  is  to  lay  off  the 
rows  with  a  scooter,  (a  small  plow  without  mould-boards, 
making  a  shallow  furrow,)  enlarge  the  furrow  with  a 
shovel-plow,  then  drag  all  the  weeds,  stubble  and  trash 
into  these  furrows,  and  cover  in  by  throwing  two  furrows 
together  upon  this  trench  with  a  two  horse  plow.  Many 
careless  cultivators  simply  lap  two  furrows  together,  leav- 
ing six  or  eight  inches  of  unbroken  soil  beneath.  If  good 
crops  are  thus  raised,  and  it  quite  often  happens  that  they 
are,  it  is  due  to  the  exuberance  of  a  virgin  soil,  which  can 
make  amends  for  almost  any  neglect  in  cultivation.  All 
the  writers,  and  all  planters,  who  have  given  the  results 
of  their  experience,  agree  in  saying  that  cotton  requires  a 


18  COTTON    CULTUKE. 

soft,  deep  bed.  The  most  thorough  cultivation  would  seem 
to  require  that  the  plowing  should  be  continued  until  all 
the  space  between  the  rows,  or  the  "  middles,"  as  they  are 
called,  are  plowed  or  "broken  out,"  in  cotton  parlance, 
by  throwing  up  the  soil  upon  the  beds  on  each  side.  But 
the  prevalent  custom  has  been  not  to  "  break  out "  these 
"  middles  "  at  the  first  plowing,  but  to  do  it  afterwards  in 
the  course  of  cultivating  the  crop.  On  lands  that  have 
been  thoroughly  cultivated,  this  omission  is  probably  im- 
material. At  any  rate,  the  very  best  of  crops  are  produced 
year  after  year  by  this  method. 

After  this  first  plowing,  the  ridges  or  beds  should  remain 
a  month  or  so,  that  the  soil  may  be  settled  by  the  spring 
rains.  Planting  commences  about  the  first  of  April,  a 
week  or  two  earlier,  say  by  the  fifteenth  or  twentieth  of 
March,  on  dry  lands,  on  the  lower  margin  of  the  cotton 
belt,  and  may  be  delayed  as  late  as  the  tenth  or  twentieth 
of  April,  in  the  latitude  of  Naslwille.  But  any  delay  after 
the  first  of  April  must  abridge  that  much  from  the  cotton 
picking  season,  for  four  or  four  and  a  half  months  must  be 
allowed  for  the  growth  of  the  cotton  plant.  Cotton  that 
is  well  up  on  the  first  of  April,  will,  in  a  favorable  season, 
begin  to  open  early  in  August,  so  that  by  the  fifteenth  a 
picker  can  come  out  of  the  rows  with  fifty  pounds  a  day. 
Yet  if  the  seed  is  put  in  the  ground  too  soon,  and  a  long 
cold  rain  follows,  it  is,  like  corn,  liable  to  rot,  and  the 
plants,  when  they  appear,  will  have  a  stunted  and  yellow 
look. 

The  varieties  of  cotton,  and  the  different  kinds  of  seed, 
Avhose  respective  merits  are  discussed  among  planters,  are 
fully  treated  of  in  a  subsequent  chapter. 

The  two  grand  divisions  of  cotton  in  the  United  States 
are  into  Sea  Island  and  Upland.  The  seed  of  the  former 
is  black  and  smooth,  of  the  latter  dark  yellowish-green,  and 
covered  with  a  fine  down.  Botanists  call  the  former  "  tree 
cotton"  and  the  latter  "shrub  cotton."  The  variety  of 


COTTON   CULTUEE.  19 

the  shrub  cotton  most  known  in  this  country,  is  the  West 
Indian,  and  the  seed  used  on  a  great  majority  of  the  plan- 
tations is  the  Mexican  or  Petit  Gulf. 

With  a  beginner  in  this  branch  of  agriculture,  the  variety 
of  Mexican  seed  which  he  uses  is  of  much  less  importance 
than  its  age  and  the  condition  in  which  he  finds  it.  Seed 
that  has  stood  through  the  winter  rains  in  a  great  pile  near 
the  gin  house,  as  was  the  practice  before  the  war  on  most 
plantations,  has  been  heated  by  fermentation,  and  its 
germinating  power  destroyed.  A  very  large  number  of 
planting  enterprizes  were  dampened  by  irretrievable  delay 
in  the  springs  of  1865  and  1866  from  the  difficulty  of  ob- 
taining good  seed.  That  first  planted  failed  to  sprout, 
was  plowed  up,  and  other  seed  planted  in  the  middle  and 
last  of  April,  and  often  as  late  as  the  middle  of  May.  A 
month  of  invaluable  time  was  thus  consumed,  and  to  com- 
plete the  mischief,  the  second  planting  was  frequently  no 
more  fortunate  than  the  tfrst.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
nature  of  the  plant  that  should  make  seed  two  or  more 
years  old  worthless,  except  the  increasing  probability  that 
in  keeping  it  for  this  length  of  time,  it  has  become  heated. 

Seed  that  has  been  kept  a  year  or  two,  and  well  taken 
care  of,  will  ensure  a  more  vigorous  stand  of  plants  as 
the  defective  seeds  perish  in  keeping  over. 

If  the  beds  or  ridges  have  been  thrown  up  for  some 
time,  and  the  surface  baked  by  heavy  rains,  the  soil  should 
be  loosened  by  running  a  light  harrow  on  the  top  of  the 
bed.  The  harrow  should  have  a  handle,  so  that  the  laborer 
can  walk  behind,  and  keep  it  on  the  top  of  the  ridge.  A 
convenient  and  cheap  arrangement  for  this  purpose  is  made 
by  bending  a  hickory  pole  an  inch  and  a  half  in  diameter, 
and  six  feet  long,  in  the  form  of  a  big  ox-bow,  and  inserting 
the  ends  a  little  behind  the  middle  of  each  shaft  or  branch 
of  the  common  V-shaped  harrow. 

The  harrow  is  followed  by  some  instrument  for  making 
a  shallow  but  very  straight  furrow  for  the  seeds.  Some 


20  COTTON    CULTURE. 

planters  are  so  impressed  with  the  importance  of  having 
the  seed  furrow  straight,  that  they  send  a  good  hoe  hand 
to  draw  a  line  with  the  edge  of  his  blade.  Where  the  beds 
are  laid  off  in  right  lines,  as  is  the  case  on  level  and  slightly 
rolling  lands,  a  good  instrument  can  be  extemporized  by 
inserting  a  blunt  wooden  tooth,  three  inches  long,  in  a 
stick,  three  inches  in  diameter,  at  intervals  of  four  feet,  if 
that  is  the  distance  of  rows  determined  upo»,  as  re- 
presented in  Fig.  1. 


Fig.  1. 

Shafts  are  inserted  by  which  the  mule  is  attached,  and 
a  big  hickory  bow  for  handling  it,  as  in  the  harrow.  Where 
the  beds  are  curved,  as  is  the  practice  in  land  that  washes 
easily,  a  contrivance  of  this  sort  would  be  useless,  and  a 
light  furrow  is  run  with  a  small  plow. 

Probably  the  corn  planter  in  common  use  at  the  West 
might  be  adjusted  so  as  to  work  well  with  cotton  seed. 
The  down  or  beard  on  the  cotton  seeds  makes  them  wad 
together  in  little  clumps  or  bunches,  so  they  will  not  fall 
regularly,  one  at  a  time,  like  the  polished  and  uniform 
kernels  of  corn. 

Thirty  pounds  of  seed  will  plant  an  acre.  Less  will  do 
it  if  confidence  can  be  felt  in  their  soundness,  and  if  pains 
are  taken  to  drop  the  seeds  one  at  a  time,  at  intervals  oi 
from  two  to  five  inches.  Some  of  the  South  Carolina 
planters  use  a  triangular  log,  three  feet  long,  armed  at  the 
front  with  a  bit  of  iron,  (a  small  horse-shoe  will  answer,) 
which  they  drag  along  the  middle  of  the  bed,  keeping  the 
sharp  edge  down,  so  as  to  make  a  narrow,  smooth  trench 


COTTON  CULTURE.  21 

for  the  seeds,  and  thus  ensure  a  straight  line  of  young 
plants.  Any  person  of  ingenuity  can  think  of  some  con- 
trivance by  which  this  may  be  effected,  and  certainly  no 
part  of  cotton  planting  will  pay  better  than  attention  at 
this  point.  Remember  that  for  three  months  your  plows, 
scrapers,  or  cultivators,  are  to  be  kept  running  backwards 
and  forwards  between  these  cotton  rows,  and,  if  the  line  of 
plants  is  straight  and  even,  the  coulter  or  the  outside  tooth 
of  the  cultivator  can  be  carried  so  close  to  the  plants  as 
almost  to  supersede  the  use  of  the  hoe.  Experience  has 
shown  that  a  hand  can  tend  an  acre  or  two  acres  more, 
where  the  planting  was  done  with  care  and  the  line  of 
young  plants  is  uniform  and  even,  than  where  the  planting 
was  careless.  One  great  reason  why  little  attention  was 
ever  paid  to  the  best  and  neatest  modes  of  getting  a  crop 
into  the  ground,  was  the  universal  feeling  that  the  force  of 
laborers  necessary  to  pick  a  crop  could  easily  plant  and 
cultivate  one.  This  may  be  true,  but  it  affords  no  apology 
for  rude  and  careless  work.  If  eight  plow  and  hoe  hands 
can  raise  as  much  cotton  as  twelve  can  pick,  it  only  shows 
that  a  skillful  planter  can  keep  four  hands  at  making  im- 
provements, raising  vegetables,  and  looking  after  stock 
during  the  months  of  April,  May,  June,  and  July,  while 
his  less  thoughtful  neighbor  has  every  hand  in  the  cotton 
field.  Economy  of  labor  always  and  everywhere  pays. 

The  following  is  the  old  established  mode  of  planting, 
practiced  on  millions  of  acres  annually.  In  the  warm  days 
of  the  latter  part  of  March,  the  seed  cotton  was  hauled  to 
the  fields,  and  dropped  in  piles  of  three  or  four  bushels,  at 
convenient  distances.  A  harrow  passed  along  on  the  top 
of  the  bed,  followed  by  a  light  plow,  and  behind  came  a 
boy  or  a  woman,  generally  the  latter,  with  an  apron  full 
of  seed,  which  was  refilled,  as  often  as  empty,  from  the 
nearest  heap.  These  were  dashed  by  handfuls  into  the 
furrow  with  a  quick  downward  jerk  or  fling  of  the  right 
hand,  the  left  meanwhile  holding  the  apron.  The  seeds 


22  COTTON   CULTURE. 

were  covered  sometimes  by  a  harrow,  and  sometimes  by  a 
board  fastened  to  the  lower  part  of  a  light  plow.  This 
board  should  be  made  of  some  hard  wood,  as  oak  or  gum, 
an  inch  or  an  inch  and  a  half  thick,  about  eight  inches 
broad,  and  thirty  inches  long,  beveled  on  the  lower  edge, 
so  as  to  be  sharp,  and  cut  away  in  a  curve,  so  as  to  fit  the 
ridge.  This  wooden  scraper  and  coverer,  when  drawn  over 
the  row,  covers  the  seed  nicely,  leaves  a  moderate  eleva- 
tion in  the  middle,  and  dresses  the  whole  surface  of  the  bed 
neatly  for  the  space  of  a  foot  or  more  on  each  side  of  the 
drill. 

Now  what  we  want  is  an  improved  cotton  planter,  having 
a  few  harrow  teeth  in  front,  which,  with  one  hand  and 
one  or  two  horses,  will  go  over  the  beds — a  reliable  and 
even  working  arrangement  for  dropping  the  seed  in  drills ; 
and  last,  the  scraper  or  coverer  described  above.  There 
is  no  reason  why  the  whole  operation  should  not  be  per- 
formed by  one  implement.  Ten  acres  can  thus  be  planted 
in  one  day  by  one  team ;  whereas  in  the  old  way  it  takes 
a  gang  of  four  laborers  and  three  mules  to  go  over  the 
same  ground. 

In  the  northern  parts  of  the  cotton  region,  where  cold 
spring  rains  often  delay  the  planting  till  the  last  of  April, 
or  the  first  of  May,  it  is  desirable  to  roll  the  seed  in  a  fer- 
tilizer that  will  hasten  the  germination.  A  compound  of 
two  parts  of  ashes  to  one  of  common  salt  is  recommended 
by  Dr.  Cloud,  a  very  successful  planter  in  Alabama.  Others 
soak  first  in  salt  dissolved  in  liquid  stable  manure,  and, 
when  damp,  roll  in  plaster.  The  latter  mode  is  preferable, 
as  the  plaster  separates  the  seeds  which  otherwise  tend  to 
mat  together,  and  when  the  dropping  is  by  hand  and  care- 
fully done,  the  white  balls  are  easily  to  be  seen,  and  can 
be  laid  more  readily  in  the  bottom  of  the  seed  furrow. 

Cotton  needs  only  a  light  covering ;  not  more  than  peas. 
An  inch  is^  enough,  and  on  damp,  clayey  soils,  too  much. 
It  will  sometimes  happen  that  a  heavy  rain,  followed  by 


COTTON   CULTURE.  23 

a  hot  sun,  will  fall  upon  the  field  just  after  the  planting 
is  concluded.  Unless  the  soil  is  quite  sandy,  the  surface 
may  bake  in  a  firm  crust  over  the  seeds,  and  delay  their 
sprouting.  In  this  case  it  is  a  good  plan  to  pass  lightly 
over  the  beds  with  a  harrow,  taking  care  to  draw  up  the 
teeth  so  as  only  to  scratch  the  surface  and  crumble  this 
crust.  This  is  more  important  in  swamp  land  than  on  the 
hills. 


CHAPTER    III. 

HOW  THE  CROP  IS  TO  BE  CULTIVATED 

Iii  ten  days  or  two  weeks  from  the  time  the  seed  was 
laid  in  its  narrow  bed,  the  planter,  walking  over  his  cotton 
field,  may  expect  to  see  a  row  of  tiny  leaflets  just  bursting 
out  of  the  moist  earth.  If  the  interval  has  been  uncom- 
monly wet  and  cold,  anxiety  is  mingled  with  his  hopes, 
for  so  many  of  the  seeds  may  have  rotted  as  to  give  him 
only  an  uneven  and  ragged  looking  stand.  The  question 
of  replanting  must  be  decided  in  a  day  or  two,  for  time  is 
now  precious,  and  every  week  lost  at  this  end  of  the  season 
is  just  so  much  subtracted  from  the  length  of  the  picking 
season.  If  he  has  planted  thick,  and  the  stand,  in  most 
places,  is  a  fair  one,  the  chilled  seeds  in  the  damper  soils 
may  yet  come  out  and  do  well.  He  first  sees  two  leaflets, 
and  in  about  three  days  the  third  appears.  Cotton  has 
this  advantage  over  many  other  crops,  that  it  has  not  the 
least  resemblance  to  any  of  the  weeds  which  infest  the 
field,  so  the  most  careless  glance  will  decide  as  to  whether 
a  particular  sprout  is  cotton  or  not.  As  soon  as  the  third 
leaf  is  fairly  developed,  the  cultivation  begins,  and  here, 
at  the  very  outset,  the  difference  between  careful  and 
slovenly  planting  of  the  seed  will  appear.  Where  the- 


24  COTTON   CULTURE. 

seeds  are  dashed  carelessly  into  a  wide  and  somewhat  irreg- 
ular furrow,  the  line  of  plants  will  be  correspondingly 
irregular.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  furrow  or  drill  was 
small  and  sharply  defined,  and  the  seeds  laid  neatly  at  the 
drill,  and  that  drill  quite  straight,  the  work  of  thinning 
out  and  cutting  away  to  a  stand  will  be  very  much  easier. 
Of  course,  the  first  thing  to  be  done,  where  the  sprouts  are 
very  thick,  is  to  cut  away  the  superfluous  plants,  and  con- 
centrate all  the  fertilizing  powers  of  the  soil  upon  the  most 
thrifty  specimens.  The  usual  practice  is  to  "run  around 
the  stand,"  as  it  is  called,  that  is,  to  carry  a  small  furrow 
close  up  to  the  crest  of  the  bed  on  each  side,  cutting  away 
and  covering  the  grass  and  superfluous  plants.  Here  very 
much  depends  upon  the  skill  of  the  plowman.  By  keep- 
ing a  firm  grasp  upon  the  handles,  and  a  close  rein  on  the 
mule,  a  good  plowman  will  carry  his  coulter  within  two 
inches  of  the  row  of  little  plants,  yet  never  disturb  them, 
while  an  inexperienced  hand  will  run  a  furrow  that  is 
sometimes  a  foot  from  the  row,  and  sometimes  throws  a 
pile  of  dirt  upon  the  plants  and  buries  them.  Where  the 
plowing  is  well  done,  the  thinning  out,  or  "  chopping  out," 
as  it  is  called,  can  be  done  rapidly.  The  hoe-gang  pass 
along,  and  break  up  the  line  of  young  plants  by  "  chopping 
out"  a  gap  of,  say  a  foot  or  more,  thus  leaving  the  stand 
in  clumps  of  three  or  four  together,  at  intervals  of  from 
twelve  to  twenty  or  thirty  inches  according  to  the  exuber- 
ance of  the  soil. 

When  the  plants  have  sprouted  in  great  uniformity,  this 
operation  is  almost  wholly  mechanical,  and  can  be  done 
very  fast ;  but  where  the  stand  is  irregular,  considerable 
judgment  must  be  constantly  exercised  in  sparing  only  the 
most  thrifty  plants,  and  such  as  are  most  exactly  in  line. 
As  a  rule,  it  does  not  pay  to  be  very  particular  this  time 
over  the  crop.  Let  the  hoes  pass  on  rapidly,  killing  the 
grass  that  is  nearest  the  plants,  and  calculating  to  get  over 
the  field  in  a  week,  if  the  weather  is  fair. 


COTTON   CULTUEE.  25 

It  may  be  here  remarked  that  rapid  movement,  and  a 
handling  which  is  brisk,  rather  than  dainty  and  particular, 
is  the  best  on  most  soils.  It  will  not  do  to  linger.  While 
you  are  bestowing  abundant  care  upon  one  side  of  your 
field,  the  other  side  may  suffer  a  set-back  from  which  it 
will  never  entirely  recover.  It  is  now  the  first  of  May, 
#nd  you  have  been  once  over  your  crop,  but  there  is  no 
time  for  pausing.  While  the  hoe-gang  are  in  their  last 
rows,  let  the  plows  go  right  back  to  the  side  where  the 
planting  began,  and  start  in  for  another  working.  This 
time  the  dirt  must  be  thrown  up  from  the  middles  toward 
the  plants,  yet  not  so  as  to  choke  them  or  bury  the  roots 
too  deeply.  Let  the  hoes  follow,  cutting  away  all  the 
plants  but  two,  the  most  thrifty  of  each  clump,  and  throw- 
ing a  little  soft,  fresh  earth  around  those  that  stand,  and 
destroying  all  the  grass  and  weeds.  This  working  should 
be  careful,  the  most  so,  in  fact,  of  any  which  the  crop  re- 
ceives. Very  much,  however,  depends  upon  the  season. 
If,  just  at  this  time,  say  from  the  first  to  the  twentieth  of 
May,  there  are  frequent  rains,  followed  by  sultry  weather, 
the  grass  will  grow  apace,  and  the  planter  must  use  his 
discretion  as  to  what  part  of  his  farm  may  be  suffering 
most. 

His  corn,  too,  needs  attention  about  this  time,  but  if  he 
must  neglect  one  or  the  other,  experience  has  shown  that 
corn  is  much  the  hardier  of  the  two,  at  least  in  a  struggle 
with  grass  and  weeds.  Cotton  is  jealous  and  exacting  in 
its  nature ;  it  must  have  attention,  and  dies  for  want  of  it ; 
or,  if  the  plant  does  not  die  amid  the  grass,  it  soon  looks 
yellow  and  sickly,  and  suffers  a  stunting  which  will  abridge 
its  bearing  time  three  weeks  or  a  month. 

By  the  twentieth  or  twenty-fifth  of  May,  the  industrious 
planter  has  probably  been  twice  over  his  crop,  and  the 
plants  are  thinned  out  to  the  final  or  permanent  stand. 
The  rest  is  now  comparatively  easy.  The  plows  must  con- 
tinue to  run  until  the  middles  are  all  broken  out ;  but  here 
2 


26  COTTON   CULTURE. 

it  may  be  remarked  that  the  cultivation  varies  with  the 
season,  and  with  the  situation  of  the  land.  In  a  summer 
blessed  with  the  usual  rainfall,  the  plowing  goes  on, 
the  dirt  being  thrown  up  from  the  middles  to  the  beds. 
If,  however,  the  rainfall  is  excessive,  so  as  to  form  a  crust 
around  the  roots,  it  is  advisable  to  carry  a  light  plow  near 
the  stand  so  as  to  break  up  this  crust,  and  allow  the  air. 
and  sun  to  strike  upon  the  roots  of  the  plant. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  season  is  uncommonly  dry,  it 
is  best  to  put  a  larger  plow  into  the  middles,  and  throw 
up  a  ridge  of  dirt  that  will  to  some  extent  protect  the 
roots.  But  on  these  points,  "  doctors  disagree,"  and  first- 
rate  planters  differ  in  practice.  The  opinion  is  almost  uni- 
versal, however,  especially  in  cultivating  the  alluvions  and 
the  black  lands,  that  the  tendency  of  the  plowing  should 
be  constantly  towards  the  ridge,  and  not  away  from  it. 

Cotton  is  a  plant  that  loves  heat,  and  does  not  demand 
large  supplies  of  moisture.  The  climate,  or  the  distribu- 
tion of  rain  with  sunshine,  is  a  matter  which  the  planter 
cannot  control ;  he  can  only  take  it  into  account  in  choos- 
ing the  region  where  he  would  have  his  farm  located. 
After  the  plant  is  six  inches  high,  it  is  really  surprising  how 
little  rain  will  make  a  crop.  An  excess  of  moisture,  or 
heavy  rains  followed  by  a  fierce  sun  on  flat  lands,  when 
the  plant  is  young,  is  likely  to  breed  lice  upon  it.  This  is 
the  first  enemy  from  the  insect  world  that  the  planter  has 
to  meet.  A  few  weeks  later,  the  same  state  of  things  will 
produce  rust  upon  cotton.  The  diseases  and  insects  de- 
structive of  the  cotton  plant  are  fully  described  in  a  sub- 
sequent part  of  this  treatise,  and  all  that  need  be  said 
here  is  that  brisk  working  is  almost  the  only  remedy  in 
the  planter's  power.  Let  him  stir  the  earth  actively,  and 
raise  the  ridge  so  as  to  keep  standing  water  away  from  the 
roots  of  the  plant. 

As  to  the  shape  and  weight  of  the  plows  that  are  used 
in  cultivating  a  crop  of  cotton,  there  is  much  variety  of 


COTTON    CULTURE.  27 

opinion,  as  well  as  much  room  for  improvement.  The 
ordinary  light  wooden  plow,  with  a  moulding  board  of 
oak  faced  with  iron,  of  easy  draught,  and  making  a  furrow 
two  or  three  inches  deep,  answers  all  the  purposes  of  the 
cotton  grower  quite  well.  Planters  differ,  also,  as  to  the 
propriety  of  ever  plowing  deep,  except  the  first  time  when 
the  beds  are  made.  Certain  it  is  that  very  fine  crops  are 
habitually  made  by  the  use  of  small,  shallow  running 
plows. 

After  the  middles  are  broken  out,  it  is  clear  t£at  some 
form  of  implement  which  shall  scrape  or  break  up  a,  con- 
siderable surface,  may  "be  used  with  advantage.  A  favorite 
plow,  if  such  it  may  be  called,  among  the  planters  in  the 
Gulf  States,  is  the  sweep  or  Eagle.  It  is  made  by  fitting 
flanks  or  wings  to  the  side  of  the  common  scooter  or  bull 


Fig.  2.— COTTON  SWEEP. 

tongue  plow,  in  such  a  way  as  to  carry  a  cutting  edge 
about  an  inch  beneath  the  surface.  It  displaces  the  earth 
very  little,  but  is  an  excellent  weed-killer,  and  tends  to 
throw  the  earth  from  the  middles  up  to  the  rows.  These 
wings  are  made  to  extend  so  that  in  ordinary  four-foot 
rows,  once  passing  over  the  soil  will  be  sufficient.  The 
cotton  sweep  represented  in  Fig.  2,  is  one  of  those  offered 


28 


COTTOX    CULTURE. 


in  the  market,  and  is  constructed  on  much  the  same 
principle  as  here  described.  Some  prefer  the  ordinary 
corn-cultivators,  and  on  light  lands  where  it  is  not  im- 
portant to  "bed  high,  they  are  probably  every  way  as  good 
as  the  sweep.  The  principal  thing  is,  that  whatever  tool 
you  may  select  should  be  kept  briskly  moving.  After 
the  second  working  of  the  cotton  crop,  the  hoe  may  to  a 
great  extent  be  dispensed  with,  but  the  plow  can  by  no 
means  be  laid  aside  even  though  the  weeds  and  grass  are 


Fig.  8.— THE  COTTON  FLOWER.— (Sea  Island.) 


subdued.     During  June  and  the  early  part  of  July  it  is 
important  to  press  the  growth  of  the  plant,  and  nothing 
does  this  so  effectively  as  frequent  stirring  of  the  soil. 
As  a  rule,  the  planter  should  manage  so  as  to  get  over 


COTTON    CULTURE. 


29 


his  crop  once  in  two  weeks  in  new,  rough,  and  grassy 
lands,  or  when  the  season  is  uncommonly  wet. 

In  a  favorable  season,  once  in  three  weeks  will  suffice. 
A  favorable  season  for  cotton  is  one  in  which  the  principal 
rainfall  comes  in  early  spring,  and  the  summer  which 
follows  has  few  rainy  days,  but  short  though  frequent 
showers. 

In  June  and  July,  especially,  a  long  wet  spell  is  injurious, 
as  also  are  all  sudden  and  great  variations  in  the  amount 
of  moisture.  On  cotton  planted  early  in  April  and  well 
tended,  the  blossoms  begin  to  show  in  the  first  days  of  June. 
No  crop  cultivated  in  this  country  is  so  beautiful  as  cot- 
ton. During  the  month  of  June  the  cotton  fields  present 
the  appearance  of  vast  flower  gardens.  The  blossom  is 
something  like  that  of  the  hollyhock,  and  its  peculiarity  is 
the  change  of  color  that  takes  place  from  day  to  day.  A 

flower  will  open  in 
the  morning  of  a 
pale  straw  color,  by 
noon  it  will  be  pure 
white,  in  the  after- 
noon of  a  faint  pink, 
and  the  next  morn- 
ing a  clear  pink.  Sea 
Island  cotton,  how- 
ever, gives  a  bloom 
that  is  always  a  pale 
yellow. 

As  the  flowers  fall 
off,  the  "forms,"  as 
they  are  called,  or 
the  young  bolls,  be- 
gin to  grow  rapidly. 


Fig.  4. — THE   BOLL  KEAKLY   HIPE. 


At  first  they  are  somewhat  angular  in  shape,  and  the  en- 
veloping leaf  forms  a  sort  of  tuft  or  ruffle  at  the  base.  As  it 
B wells,  the  lines* grow  rounder,  though  it  never  becomes 


30  COTTON   CULTURE. 

quite  spherical.  Great  changes  in  the  degree  of  moisture 
are  now  very  mischievous.  A  copious  rain,  followed  by 
hot  sun  in  the  latter  part  of  June  and  in  July,  will  cause 
the  plant  to  throw  out  a  great  number  of  forms,  and  the 
planter's  prospects  are  flattering.  But  if  the  heat  con- 
tinues for  ten  days  or  two  weeks  without  timely  showers, 
the  plant  seems  to  feel  that  it  has  undertaken  too  much, 
and  sheds  a  great  number  of  its  forms.  This  shedding, 
however,  will  be  checked  by  a  moderate  shower ;  but  a 
copious  rain,  followed  by  drouth,  will  cause  the  same 
phenomenon  again.  When  the  plant  approaches  maturity 
in  size,  that  is  to  say,  when  the  branches  are  beginning  to 
interlock  across  the  middles,  it  is  doubtful  whether  the 
plow  can  be  of  much  benefit.  Deep  plowing  at  this  stage 
is  clearly  injurious.  Besides  the  principal  or  tap-root  of 
the  cotton  plant,  which  runs  directly  down,  it  sends  off 
side  shoots  or  sprangles,  not  so  many  or  so  long  as  those 
of  corn,  but  enough  to  be  much  mangled  and  broken  by  a 
plow,  or  any  other  implement,  that  runs  more  than  two 
inches  below  the  surface.  The  breaking  of  these  roots, 
and  putting  out  of  new  ones,  checks  the  advance  of  the 
crop,  and  tends  to  produce  a  fresh  or  second  growth,  the 
bolls  of  which  will  be  immature  at  the  coming  of  frost. 

The  true  policy  is  to  push  the  growth  of  cotton  just  as 
rapidly  as  possible  until  the  branches  interlock,  and  then 
let  the  vigor  of  the  plant  go  to  making  and  perfecting 
bolls. 

The  old  and  established  routine  among  the  planters  of 
the  Gulf  States  is  as  described  above,  and  may  be  condensed 
into  a  formula  as  follows : 

First. — In  two  weeks  after  planting  bar  off ;  that  is,  run 
a  light  plow  close  to  the  young  plants,  cutting  away  the 
grass,  and  throwing  dirt  from  the  row.  The  hoes  follow 
and  chop  out,  leaving  clumps  of  five  or  six  plants  a  foot 
and  a  half  apart. 

Second. — Ten  days  or  two  weeks  after,,  mould  or  dirt 


COTTOX   CULTURE.  31 

the  cotton  ;  that  is,  let  the  plows  throw  the  mould  up  to 
the  row,  the  hoes  to  follow  thinning  the  plants  to  a  stand, 
and  leaving  everything  clean  and  smooth.  The  plows  keep 
running  till  the  middles  are  all  broken  out. 

After  this,  from  the  last  of  May  on,  the  cultivation  is 
mainly  with  the  plow,  sweep  or  cultivator,  the  hoes  going 
rapidly  over  and  thinning  out  if  the  stand  appears  too 
thick.  ' 

I  have  known  excellent  crops  raised  where  this  routine 
v,  MS  very  much  modified.  For  instance,  a  planter  near  a 
great  river  may  be  occupied  during  April  and  a  part  of 
of  May  in  building  a  levee  to  keep  the  water  off  his 
fields.  It  may  be  the  middle  of  May  before  he  goes 
over  his  crop  the  first  time.  In  that  case  he  had  better 
cut  away  to  a  stand  the  first  time  over,  and  at  the  same 
time  break  out  his  middles.  Where  the  first  cultivation 
is  thus  thorough,  the  subsequent  workings  may  be  very 
rapid,  and  one  hoeing  make  a  good  clear  crop.  But  this 
can  only  be  on  old  land  that  has  been  carefully  cultivated 
for  many  years,  till  the  weeds  and  grass  are  well 
killed  out.  As  a  rule,  and  in  four  cases  out  of  five,  ten 
days  of  the  moist,  hot  weather,  characteristic  of  the  spring 
months  in  the  Cotton  States,  will  make  afield  look  "  hairy," 
and  the  plows  must  be  hastened  into  it. 

As  the  summer  solstice  approaches,  and  during  the  fierce 
heat  of  July  and  the  early  part  of  August,  care  must  be 
taken  for  the  comfort  of  both  the  laborer  and  his  mule. 
The  plowman  cannot  move  to  the  field  too  early.  At  the 
first  gleam  of  dawn,  let  him  lay  the  plow-line  over  his  neck, 
and  get  his  animal  between  the  cotton  rows.  But  he 
should  come  in  early  from  the  midday  heat.  Unless  the 
crop  is  suffering,  let  him  knock  off  at  eleven  o'clock,  and 
have  a  nooning  of  three  or  four  hours,  during  which  the 
horse  or  mule  may  cool  off  in  the  shade,  and  be  in  a  con- 
dition to  eat  heartily  of  dry  fodder  with  some  corn.  If 
possible,  and  with  ten  mules  to  a  hundred  acres,  it  can  be 


32  COTTOX    CULTURE, 

done,  the  plowman  should  shift  his  harness  to  another  ani- 
mal in  the  afternoon,  and  thus  keep  the  condition  of  his 
stock  well  up.  A  brisk  pace  before  the  plow  should  be 
insisted  upon.  As  a  general  thing,  the  resistance  of  a 
small  plow  or  sweep  in  the  light  friable  soil  where  cotton 
flourishes,  is  not  more  than  fifty  pounds,  often  not  more 
than  twenty-five,  so  that  when  the  rows  are  straight  and 
even,  a  good  animal  can  keep  up  a  pace  of  three  miles  an 
hour.  So  with  the  hoes.  Two  rapid  though  somewhat 
careless  workings  are  better  than  one  that  is  slow  and 
thorough ;  for  until  the  plant  is  nearly  grown,  it  cannot 
have  the  dirt  stirred  around  it  too  often. 

The  chief  improvement  on  the  old  modes  of  culture  that 
can  be  made  is  in  the  rapidity  and  evenness  of  planting, 
as  mentioned  in  the  foregoing  chapter,  and  in  the  first 
working. 

Where  the  row  of  young  plants  is  straight  at  the  first 
working,  that  is,  at  the  time  of  the  appearance  of  the  third 
leaf,  ifTequires  but  little  thought  to  see  that  some  imple- 
ment could  be  devised  to  throw  the  dirt  away,  and  kill 
the  grass  on  each  side  at  the  same  time.  The  Shanghai 
plow,  as  it  is  not  very  elegantly  called,  proposes  to  do 
this,  and  some  planters  who  have  used  it,  speak  highly  of 
the  invention.  It  consists  of  two  small  plows  fastened  to 
one  beam,  one  throwing  a  furrow  to  the  right,  the  other 
to  the  left,  and  leaving  a  clear  space  of  about  six  inches 
between  them.  It  should  be  drawn  by  tAVO  horses  walk- 
ing on  each  side  of  the  row,  while  the  plow  moves  on  the 
crest,  the  line  of  young  plants  entirely  guarded  by  the 
open  space  between  the  two  shares.  Some  planters  have 
found  that  the  same  result  may  be  accomplished  by  taking 
out  the  forward  hoes  of  a  common  cultivator,  and  keeping 
it  astride  the  bed. 

We  give  here  a  cut  and  description  of  one  of  the  Cot- 
ton-seed Planters  that  are  before  the  public,  and  which 
promises  well,  though  as  yet  it  has  been  tested  by  but 


COTTOX    CULTURE. 


33 


few  cotton  growers.  Those  who  have  used  this  speak 
emphatically  in  its  praise.  That  implement  which  proves 
itself  best  adapted  to  the  work  to  be  done,  will  of  course 
find  favor,  and  there  are  several  cotton-seed  planters  which 
have  not  yet  been  fairly  tested. 

The  accompanying  cut  represents  a  barrel-shaped  re- 
volving seed-box,  (7,  with  a  shaft  or  axle  running  through 
its  centre,  to  which  the  wheels  are  attached,  and  the  re- 
volving movement  keeps  the  seed  constantly  in  motion. 
It  is  distributed  evenly,  or  properly  separated  in  the  row, 


i£.  5. — rSGEKSOLL'S  REVOLVING  COTTOX  SEED   PLANTER. 

Patented  June  2oth,  1867. 

through  a  series  of  inner  openings  and  one  outer  opening 
on  the  under  side,  which  is  provided  with  a  lever  and  slide, 
and  the  quantity  of  seed  discharged  is  regulated  by  mov- 
ing the  slide  lever  G.  The  distribution  of  the  seed  is 
thus  accomplished  by  a  mechanical  movement,  very  sim- 
ple, effectual,  and  certain,  and  no  complication  of  gear- 
work  or  springs  to  get  out  of  order. 

The  coulter,  A.^  is  used  when  necessary  to  clear  away 
stalks,  vines,  etc.,  on  the  surface. 

The  furring-wheel,  F,  marks  the  ground  more  or  less 
deep  where  the  seed  is  to  fall. 
2* 


34 


COTTON   CULTURE. 


The  drag-bar,  .Z),  has  two  adjustable  covering  shares, 
-Z?  j5,  which  will  run  over  obstructions  without  catching, 
and  cover  the  seed  well  and  evenly. 

The  lever,  JET,  raises  both  furring-wheel  and  drag-bar 
off  the  ground,  when  not  wanted. 

By  reversing  the  form  of  the  seed-box,  so  that  the  seed 
will  fall  from  both  ends,  a  machine  is  made  by  which  two 
rows  are  planted  at  once.  In  this  case,  the  horse  travels 
between  the  rows,  the  man  rides  on  the  machine,  the 
wheels  running  on  the  ridges,  and  the  seed  is  dropped  just 
inside  of  each,  and  covered  as  shown  above.  By  this 
simple  and  desirable  improvement,  one  man  can  plant  15 
to  20  acres  per  day,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  great  importance 
that  the  planting  be  accomplished  as  soon  as  possible  after 
the  ground  is  ready  for  the  seed. 

These  machines  are  manufactured  in  a  substantial  and 
durable  manner  by  Ingersoll  &  Dougherty,  Green  Point, 
Kings  Co.,  L.  I. 


Fig.  6.— FOSTER'S  COTTON  SEED  PLANTER. 

Fig.  6  represents  Foster's  Cotton  Seed  Planter,  as  sold 
by  R.  H.  Allen  &  Co.,  of  New  York.  The  implement  is 
the  invention  of  Newton  Foster,  of  Palmyra,  N.  Y.,  and 


COTTON   CULTURE.  35 

was  put  upon  the  market  in  1860,  when  a  few  were  sold. 
Orders  now  coming  from  localities  where  these  were  sent, 
in  absence  of  other  testimony,  indicate  that  it  gives  some 
satisfaction.  The  seed,  as  it  comes  from  the  gin,  is  put 
into  the  conical  hopper  and  distributed  with  considerable 
uniformity,  though  in  rather  large  quantity,  by  curved 
arms  revolving  on  the  bottom  and  pressing  the  seeds  out 
through  openings  in  the  base  of  the  cone,  whence  they 
are  conducted  by  a  funnel  to  the  drill,  which  is  opened  and 
covered  by  the  machine  in  its  passage. 

The  best  mode  of  planting  and  cultivating  a  cotton  crop, 
implements  and  all  considered,  may  be  briefly  described 
as  follows ;  it  being  understood  that  the  land  is  capable 
of  producing  a  bale  to  the  acre  with  the  season  favorable. 

Break  up  the  whole  surface  early  in  March,  and  bed  up 
for  the  rows,  placing  them  four  or  four  and  a  half  feet  apart. 
On  the  first  of  April,  run  a  small  harrow  along  the  top  of 
the  bed,  follow  it  by  a  triangular  piece  of  wood  that  will 
make  a  straight,  well  defined  trench,  and  drop  the  seeds, 
after  being  soaked  in  a  fertilizing  mixture  and  rolled  in 
ashes  and  plaster,  at  intervals  of  two  or  three  inches ; 
cover  with  a  board  that  shall  leave  a  smooth,  rounded 
surface. 

When  the  third  leaf  appears,  use  a  Shanghai  plow  or 
some  similar  implement  that  will  straddle  the  row,  and 
clean  away  the  grass  and  weeds  on  both  sides  at  once. 
Let  the  hoes  follow,  cutting  out  to  a  stand,  and  use  sweeps 
or  light  plows  in  breaking  out  the  middles. 

Go  over  the  crop  once  in  fifteen  days  with  the  plow,  and  ' 
follow  with  the  hoe,  if  necessary,  till  the  plant  is  so  far 
grown  that  the  branches  begin  to  interlock  across  the 
middles.  Then  "  lay  by."  Your  crop  is  assured  unless 
damaged  or  destroyed  by  the  boll  worm  or  the  army  worm, 
or  killed  by  a  premature  frost. 


36  COTTON   CULTUKE. 

CHAPTER    IV. 

COTTON  PICKING. 

Early  in  August  the  fortunate  and  enterprising  planter 
will  walk  in  from  a  survey  of  his  crop  with  two  or  three 
open  bolls  in  his  hand.  His  harvest  is  approaching.  He 
plans  to  have  his  fodder  pulling  done  in  a  week,  if  not  al- 
ready over,  and  he  looks  after  his  sacks  and  baskets.  A 
yard  and  a  half  or  two  yards  of  strong  Lowell,  made  into  a 
wide-mouthed  sack,  and  furnished  with  a  broad  double 
strap  to  go  over  the  neck,  is  provided  for  every  hand  on 
the  place. 

The  mouth  or  opening  should  be  made  so  as  to  hang 
open,  convenient  for  the  picker.  A  cord  or  rope,  as  big  as 
the  little  finger,  sewed  all  around  the  top  on  the  outside, 
helps  keep  the  bag  open.  The  length  of  the  strap  and 
depth  of  the  bag  should  be  carefully  adjusted  to  the  size 
and  figure  of  the  laborer,  for  the  planter  can  ill  afford  to 
waste  the  strength,  or  needlessly  multiply  the  motions  of 
a  picker.  Each  hand  should  also  have  his  basket.  These 
are  made  of  wide,  white  oak  splits,  coarse  in  texture,  not 
very  heavy,  and  capable  of  holding  about  four  bushels. 
It  is  very  well  to  have  each  sack  and  each  basket  branded 
or  otherwise  marked  with  the  name  of  the  laborer,  as  it 
prevents  confusion,  and  it  is  well  known  that  a  workman 
is  always  better  satisfied  to  feel  that  he  has  absolute  and 
certain  control  of  his  tools. 

As  soon  as  you  can  look  down  between  two  rows  of 
cotton,  and  count  half  a  dozen  open  bolls,  start  in  the 
pickers.  They  will  get  more  than  it  seems  likely  that 
they  would,  and,  if  active,  will  probably  come  out  with 
forty  or  fifty  pounds.  From  this  time  on  till  nearly  Christ- 
mas the  one  great  business  on  a  cotton  plantation,  to  which 
everything  else  must  yield,  and  in  which  every  available 
finger  should  be  employed,  is  picking.  There  is  no  crop 


COTTON    CULTURE. 


37 


known,  at  least  in  this  country,  of  which  the  harvesting  is 
so  long  and  monotonous.  One  boll  is  just  like  another,  one 
row  the  fac  simile  of  its  neighbor.  There  is  no  science  or 
ingenuity  that  has  been  brought,  or  is  likely  to  be  made 
effectual  in  very  much  modifying,  abridging  or  lightening 


Fig.  7. — THE  COTTON  PLANT. 

this  labor.  In  the  nature  of  things,  it  must  be  done  by  the 
fingers,  and  by  the  fingers  only,  in  order  to  be  done  well. 
The  green  seed  or  Mexican  and  Petit  Gulf  cotton,  which  is 
the  variety  chiefly  cultivated  in  this  country,  when  fully 
mature,  opens  its  burr  or  shell  quite  wide,  and  the  mass  of 
cotton  within  gradually  falls  outward,  and  droops  by  the 
weight  of  the  seeds.  At  some  periods  of  the  picking  sea- 


38  COTTOX    CULTURE. 

son,  for  instance  during  the  month  of  October,  these  open 
bolls,  with  the  handful  of  snowy  fibre  hanging  loose  and 
fleecy,  sometimes  six  or  eight  inches  downward  from  the 
stem,  present  a  beautiful  and  interesting  sight. 

It  seems  like  very  easy  work  to  gather  a  material  which 
shows  itself  in  such  abundance  as  fairly  to  whiten  the  field, 
but  let  the  skeptic  or  the  grumbler  take  a  bag  on  his 
shoulder,  and  start  in  between  a  couple  of  rows.  He  will 
find,  upon  taking  hold  of  the  first  boll,  that  the  fibres  are 
quite  firmly  attached  to  the  interior  lining  of  the  pod,  and 
if  he  makes  a  quick  snatch,  thinking  to  gather  the  entire 
lock,  he  will  only  tear  it  in  two,  or  leave  considerable  adher- 
ing to  the  pod.  And  yet  he  may  notice  that  an  experienced 
picker  will  gather  the  cotton,  and  lay  his  fingers  into  the 
middle  of  the  open  pod  with  a  certain  expertness  which 
only  practice  gives ;  the  effect  of  which  is  to  clear  the 
whole  pod  with  one  movement  of  the  hand.  Even  long 
practice  does  not  enable  every  laborer  to  become  a  rapid 
picker,  no  more  than  every  printer  is  a  fast  compositor. 
There  is  a  knack  in  cotton  picking  as  in  type  setting,  which 
cannot  be  acquired  by  all.  Women  generally  make  the 
fastest  pickers,  and  next  to  them  will  be  found  the  small, 
compact  young  man,  weighing  about  a  hundred  and  forty 
pounds,  and  not  more  than  five  feet  eight  inches  in  height. 
Good  pickers  are  generally  quiet,  sometimes  not  speaking 
a  word  from  one  end  of  the  row  to  the  other.  They  are 
persons  who  habitually  keep  their  minds  directly  on  the 
thing  in  hand,  and  who,  by  the  constitution  of  their  bodies, 
enjoy  the  intensity  of  swift  motions,  and  naturally  love  to 
accomplish  a  good  deal  in  what  they  are  doing.  When 
the  bag  attains  the  weight  of,  say  twenty-five  pounds  or 
more,  there  should  be  a  convenient  arrangement  for  trans- 
ferring its  contents  to  the  basket.  It  is  here  that  the  skill 
and  calculation  of  a  planter  are  manifested.  For  instance, 
if  you  set  your  baskets  beside  one  of  the  plantation  roads, 
and  start  your  hands  in  to  go  from  there  to  the  other  side 


COTTON  CULTURE.  39 

of  the  field  and  back,  they  may  gather  twenty-five  pounds 
in  the  outward  tiip.  Then  coming  back  to  the  baskets, 
they  will  gather  twenty-five  more.  It  is  easy  to  see  that 
the  last  half  of  the  load  will  be  collected  with  very  much 
more  fatigue  and  inconvenience  than  the  first  half;  for,  in 
addition  to  the  labor  of  picking,  the  laborer  has  to  carry 
on  his  homeward  trip  twenty-five  pounds  weight  which  is 
continually  increasing  until  it  becomes  fifty  before  he  is 
relieved  of  it.  Picking,  though  not  heavy  work,  is  tire- 
some, and  in  the  last  degree  monotonous,  so  that  regard 
for  the  comfort  of  the  laborer,  as  well  as  desire  to  advance 
the  work,  will  suggest  that  the  planter  make  every  possible 
arrangement  to  relieve  and  lighten  the  task,  and  enable 
the  picker  to  take  his  work  at  the  very  best  advantage. 

Let  the  field  be  divided  up  by  lanes  and  -roads  in  such 
a  way  that  the  picker  will  never  carry  much  weight  in  his 
bag.  The  bags  are  emptied  into  the  basket  as  soon  as 
filled,  and  it  is  desirable  that  the  hands  should  keep  along 
together  so  as  to  come  out  about  the  same  time.  In  fact, 
it  is  policy  to  let  the  fast  pickers  work  some  on  the  rows 
of  the  young  and  slow  pickers.  This  gives  encouragement, 
keeps  the  gang  of  laborers  together,  and  stimulates  the 
slower  ones  to  keep  up.  Nothing  is  more  disheartening 
to  a  young  or  feeble  picker,  than  to  find  himself  two  or 
three  hundred  yards  in  the  rear  of  the  main  force,  tired, 
with  a  heavy  bag,  all  the  time  painfully  conscious  of  his 
inferiority  to  the  rest,  and  perhaps  too  frequently  reminded 
of  it  by  harsh  and  discouraging  words.  Though  too  much 
talking  and  singing  must  interfere  with  labor,  it  is  earn- 
estly recommended  to  every  cotton  grower  to  take  care  to 
secure  cheerfulness  if  not  hilarity  in  the  field. 

Remember  that  it  is  a  very  severe  strain  upon  the  pa- 
tience and  spirits  of  any  one,  to  be  urged  to  rapid  labor  of 
precisely  the  same  description,  day  after  day,  week  after 
week,  month  after  month.  Humanity,  to  say  nothing  of 
self-interest,  (and  here  humanity  and  self-interest  are  iden- 


40  COTTON   CULTURE. 

tical,)  must  suggest  various  cheap  and  harmless  modes  of 
relieving  the  tedium  of  this  kind  of  labor.  Fo;  instance, 
let  there  be  refreshments  at  the  baskets,  a  dish  of  hot 
coifee  in  a  cool  morning,  or  a  pail  of  buttermilk  in  a  hot 
afternoon,  or  a  tub  of  sweetened  water,  or  a  basket  of 
apples,  so  that  when  the  gang  come  out  from  between 
the  rows,  and  empty  their  bags,  they  may  for  a  few  mo- 
ments enjoy  themselves,  take  a  little  rest,  and  indulge  in 
a  harmless  joke  before  setting  in  again.  They  will  be  cer- 
tain to  more  than  make  up  the  time  by  the  swiftness  with 
which  their  fingers  will  spring  from  one  snowy  boll  to  an- 
other, and  swiftness  of  movement  is,  of  all  things,  what 
you  most  need  in  order  to  harvest  your  crop  in  good  time 
and  in  good  condition.  This  cannot  be  expected  where 
the  spirits  droop,  and  life  is  made  to  seem  burdensome. 
Additional  wages  should  also  be  paid  to  the  largest 
pickers.  It  may  be  best,  in  some  cases,  to  change  the 
terms  of  labor  in  the  picking  time,  and  pay  so  many  cents 
for  every  hundred  pounds,  but  as  the  picking  varies  greatly, 
according  to  the  openness  of  the  bolls,  this  is  not  so  good 
a  plan  as  to  give  a  bonus  of  so  much  for  every  ten  pounds 
over  one  hundred  or  one  hundred  and  fifty  or  two  hun- 
dred, which  the  picker  brings  in  at  night.  Care  should 
be  taken  also,  to  abridge  all  the  labor  that  is  done  after 
the  picking  ceases  at  night.  The  health  of  your  force  re- 
quires this,  for  during  the  principal  part  of  the  picking 
season,  the  contrast  between  the  temperature  of  midday 
and  after  nightfall  is  very  great,  and  chill  and  fever  must 
follow  where  a  person  is  exposed  to  both  without  corres- 
ponding change  of  dress.  The  practice  on  a  great  number 
of  the  plantations  in  the  Gulf  States,  under  the  old  regime, 
was  decidedly  faulty  in  this  respect. 

The  hands  were  expected  to  be  in  the  field  at  early 
dawn,  and  commence  picking  as  soon  as  they  could  see. 
In  September,  and  much  more  so  in  October,  and  the  fol- 
lowing months  of  autumn,  the  dews  are  heavy  and  cold. 


COTTON   CULTURE.  41 

The  clothing  becomes  wet,  and  the  frame  chilled  in  the 
raw,  morning  air.  But,  soon  after  sunrise,  the  temperature 
begins  to  rise  rapidly,  and  by  ten  o'clock  the  thermometer 
may  stand  between  seventy  and  eighty  degrees.  This 
degree  of  heat  continues  for  several  hours,  but  declines 
very  fast  at  sunset,  so  as  to  be  as  low  as  forty  by  the  time 
the  stars  appear.  The  cotton  field  will  naturally  be  situated 
on  the  lowest  lands,  and  at  night  the  malarious  air  falls, 
so  as  to  make  them  the  most  unwholesome  of  any  in  the 
vicinity.  The  effect  of  exposing  laborers  daily  to  such 
vicissitudes  can  easily  be  imagined. 

About  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  one  and  another  of 
a  gang  of  laborers  would  come  out  of  the  field,  sick  with 
a  violent  chill.  This  would  be  followed  by  a  high  fever, 
and  the  hand  kept  from  earning  anything  for  three  or  four 
days,  and  often  a  week. 

There  is  no  time  in  the  year  when  the  cotton  grower 
can  so  ill  afford  to  have  his  force  diminished,  as  in  the 
picking  season.  Labor  is  then  everywhere  in  demand. 
Good  pickers  can  always  command  high  wages,  and  every- 
body that  can  work  is  then  occupied. 

Let  the  planter  remember  that  an  ounce  of  prevention 
is  worth  a  pound  of  cure.  Coffee  is  the  most  agreeable 
preventive  of  miasmatic  disease,  and  quinine  the  most 
effective.  In  picking  time,  every  plantation  on  low  lands 
should  be  supplied  with  both,  and  should  use  the  former 
with  liberality,  and  the  latter  in  moderation. 

Let  the  pickers  have  the  sunlight  upon  them  the  whole 
time  of  their  being  at  work.  Kindle  a  fire  at  the  baskets 
before  they  go  out,  set  on  a  big  pot  or  kettle  of  coffee,  and 
have  it  boiling  before  sunrise.  Give  each  hand  a  half  pint 
of  it,  and  with  it  a  hard  cracker,  a  roast  potato,  or  a  piece 
of  bread.  Then,  at  eight,  provide  breakfast.  Let  the 
work  be  brisk  till  nearly  sunset,  pausing  only  for  dinner, 
and  manage  to  have  the  day's  picking  weighed  and  stored 


42  COTTON   CULTURE. 

away  in  the  gin-house  or  in  cribs,  made  for  the  purpose, 
before  the  dew  falls  upon  it. 

Though  such  is  not  the  custom,  probably,  there  is  no 
time  so  favorable  for  sorting  and  trashing  cotton,  as  when 
it  is  first  picked.  It  is  less  matted  then  than  at  any  sub- 
sequent handling,  and  the  particles  of  leaf  and  stalk  and 
dirt  are  not  entangled  in  the  fibre,  as  they  afterwards  be- 
come. Instead  of  weighing  the  baskets,  each  hand,  as  he 
comes  out,  can  hang  his  bag  upon  the  hook  of  a  spring 
balance  before  he  empties  it.  Then  let  an  invalid,  an  old 
person,  or  a  woman,  sit  by  the  baskets,  and  sort  over  and 
trash  the  contents  of  each  bag. 

Cotton  of  the  Mexican,  Petit  Gulf,  and  Okra  varieties, 
(all  of  which  are  "  green  seed  "  cottons,  differing  very  little 
in  appearance,)  will  naturally  class  into  four  grades,  as  it 
comes  from  the  field. 

First. — The  fine,  long  stapled  cotton,  clean,  dry,  and 
silken  to  the  touch.  This  will  greatly  predominate  in  the 
early  pickings,  before  the  frosts  and  the  heavy  fall  rains 
occur. 

Second. — The  short,  kinky  bolls,  that  have  been  bored 
by  the  boll  worm,  and  not  quite  killed,  or  which  came  late, 
and  were  unclenched  by  the  frost,  or  which  grew  under 
the  disadvantage  of  excessive  or  irregular  moisture. 

Third. — Trashy  cotton.  This  abounds  after  the  heavy 
frosts,  and  the  trash  consists  of  minute  fragments  of  leaves 
and  stems,  that  become  hopelessly  mixed  with  the  fibres, 
so  as  never  to  be  entirely  removed.  They  cause  the  small 
black  specks  that  abound  in  the  coarser  varieties  of  Lowells 
and  Osnaburgs. 

Fourth. — Dirty  cotton.  This  comes  in  after  heavy  rains, 
accompanied  by  winds,  which  have  blown  out  the  contents 
of  the  pods,  and  beaten  it  into  the"  earth,  or  driven  sand 
all  through  the  fibres. 

During  the  months  of  September  and  October,  there  is 
no  need  of  having  much  trashy  or  dirty  cotton.  That  which 


COTTON   CULTUKE.  43 

is  kinky  or  imperfectly  developed,  should  be  carefully 
separated  from  the  best,  and  either  kept  by  itself  or  thrown 
with  the  other  low  grades.  The  manufacturer  can  use  it 
in  making  strong,  coarse  fabrics. 

The  cotton  of  long  staple  and  high  grade,  should  not  be 
allowed  to  become  damp  with  dew,  but  taken  while  still 
warm  and  dry,  and  stored  in  a  shed  or  in  the  gin-house, 
and  lie  a  month  or  two  before  it  is  ginned.  This  gives  the 
oil  in  the  seeds  time  to  ascend  into  the  fibres,  thus  impart- 
ing a  fine,  pale,  straw  color,  which  the  manufacturer  loves 
to  see,  and  also  increasing  the  weight. 

It  is  almost  impossible,  after  the  heavy  frosts,  to  pick 
cotton  free  of  trash,  and  where  the  crop  is  large,  more  than 
half  of  it  may  come  under  this  description.  In  some  con- 
ditions of  the  market,  planters  find  the  difference  between 
trashy  and  clean  cotton  so  little,  as  to  discourage  them 
from  efforts  to  send  a  fine  article  to  market.  But,  in  gen- 
eral, moderate  painstaking  will  enable  the  grower  to  com- 
mand from  two  to  five  cents  more  per  pound. 

The  thoughtful  planter  will  also  manage  so  as  to  have 
the  cotton  handled  as  few  times  as  possible,  both  to  econo- 
mize labor,  finish  work  as  early  as  possible,  and  prevent 
his  staple  from  becoming  matted  and  dirty.  Where  ten 
baskets  are  to  be  emptied  twice  a  day,  there  is  no  need  of 
pouring  them  into  a  great  box  wagon,  stamping  down,  and 
then  unloading,  by  filling  the  basket  again  at  the  crib  or 
gin-house.  When  the  work  is  in  a  remote  field,  and  the 
weighing  is  done  by  torchlight,  the  hands  about  the 
wagons  may  not  get  their  suppers  till  eight  or  nine  o'clock. 

Where  the  roads  are  good,  an  excellent  plan  is  to  couple 
the  fore  and  hind  wheels  of  a  wagon  with  a  pole  of  proper 
length,  lay  t\vo  other  poles  or  long  planks  on  the  axle- 
trees,  set  the  basket  on  them,  and  empty  at  the  gin-house. 
If  the  weighing  is  done  in  a  bag,  this  is  entirely  practicable, 
and  allows  all  the  hands  to  get  to  their  houses  in  half  an 
hour  after  they  came  out  from  the  rows.  Where  the  num- 


44  COTTON   CULTURE. 

her  of  baskets  is -large,  some  other  plan  can  easily  be  de- 
vised by  one  who  is  studying  how  to  get  the  greatest 
amount  of  work  done  'in  the  shortest  time,  and  with  the 
least  wear  of  muscle. 

The  month  of  October  is  the  height  of  the  picking 
season  in  the  best  cotton  regions.  Many  fields  that  were 
rapidly  picked  early  in  September,  are  now  literally  "  white 
for  the  harvest."  Now  the  planter  cannot  urge  his  work 
too  zealously.  But  let  him  not,  in  his  pushing,  encroach 
upon  the  hours  of  relaxation  and  sleep.  His  rule 
should  be :  "  Gather  no  cotton  upon  which  the  sun  is  not 
shining,  and  to  pay  high  for  fast  picking  rather  than  for 
night  work." 

At  times,  in  the  picking  season,  it  will  be  advisable  to 
divide  the  force,  especially  where  it  is  large,  into  "fast 
pickers"  and  "the  trash  gang,"  instructing  the  former  to 
press  along,  and  gather  rapidly  all  the  fair  clean  cotton 
that  is  hanging  open  on  the  upper  branches  of  the  bush, 
the  others  to  follow,  gleaning  all  that  remains,  the  imper- 
fect bolls,  that  which  has  fallen  to  the  ground,  or  been 
trailed  in  the  dirt. 

The  picking  season  lasts  from  three  to  four  months,  in- 
cluding all  of  September,  October,  and  November,  and 
frequently  a  part  of  August  and  December.  But  where 
cotton  opens  early,  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not  be 
nearly  all  gathered  by  the  tenth  of  December. 

In  the  older  regions  of  the  South,  as  Georgia  and  South 
Carolina,  it  has  been  the  usual  practice  to  weigh  but  once 
a  day,  and  to  require  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  as  a 
day's  work.  In  good  open  cotton,  a  fast  hand  will  gather 
this  amount  in  five  or  six  hours,  but  in  the  beginning,  as  at 
the  close  of  the  season,  the  whole  day  will  be  consumed 
in  picking  this  number  of  pounds. 

It  requires  rather  more  than  three  times  the  weight  of 
lint  to  make  a  given  amount  of  unginned  cotton.  Thus, 
from  fifteen  to  eighteen  hundred  pounds  of  cotton  in  the 


COTTON   CULTURE.  45 

seed  will  be  required  in  making  a  bale  of  the  usual  weight. 
Ten  good  hands  can  pick  a  bale  per  day.  Hence,  if  ten 
hands  have  planted  a  hundred  acres,  which  proves  a  good 
crop,  they  will  consume  a  hundred  days  in  picking  it  out. 


CHAPTER    Y. 

GINNING,  BALING  AND  MARKETING. 

In  detailing,  step  by  step,  vthe  process  of  cotton  raising, 
we  have  hitherto  been  dealing,  as  it  were,  with  fixed  quan- 
tities. The  directions  given  for  the  stock  and  implements 
of  a  cotton  farm,  the  preparation  of  the  soil,  the  selection 
of  seed,  the  planting  and  cultivation,  and,  as  in  the  last 
chapter,  the  picking  and  storing  of  cotton  in  the  seed, 
apply  with  hardly  any  variations  to  the  production 
of  the  crop  wherever  it  is  extensively  raised  in  the 
United  States.  No  material  changes  can  be  made  in  this 
routine,  whether  you  have  selected  a  warm  and  sunny 
slope  in  southern  Illinois,  or  drop  your  seed  into  the  rank 
and  teeming  soil  of  Louisiana,  in  fields  bordered  by  rows 
of  orange  trees. 

We  speak  now  not  so  much  of  what  must  be  clone,  as  of 
what  may  be  done.  The  producer  now  has  in  his  sheds, 
or,  perhaps,  in  cribs  in  the  field,  a  large  amount  of  cotton 
in  the  seed.  When  the  picking  season  comes  to  an  end,  to- 
ward the  middle  of  December,  he  may  have  a  hundred 
and  forty  thousand  pounds ;  that  is  on  the  supposition  that 
his  ten  hands  have  been  successful  in  the  cultivation  of  a 
hundred  acres.  Every  thrifty  planter,  however,  must  be 
supposed  to  have  anticipated  the  marketing  of  his  crop, 
and  to  have  made,  at  least,  some  preparation  in  the  earlier 
part  of  the  season  for  ginning  and  baling. 

If  there  was  no  gin  on  the  place,  it  is  fair  to  suppose 
that  he  bought  one  in  August,  while  the  crop  was  in  the 


46  COTTON    CULTUEE. 

interval  between  cultivation  and  harvest,  and  made  arrange- 
ments, more  or  less  complete,  for  the  easy  and  rapid  hand- 
ling of  his  crop  when  picked.  These  arrangements  may 
be  of  various  degrees  of  rudeness,  from  a  simple  open  shed, 
sufficient  only  to  shelter  his  machinery,  or  a  big-walled 
tent,  to  a  large,  complete,  and  perfectly  appointed  gin- 
house,  costing  three  or  four  thousand  dollars. 

As  a  general  thing,  horse-power  is  employed  in  ginning 
American  cotton.  On  very  large  plantations,  where  the 
amount  raised  approximates  to  a  thousand  bales,  a  steam 
gin  is  in  most  cases  erected.  These  are  matters  that  de- 
pend almost  entirely  upon  the  amount  of  capital  that  one 
brings  to  the  business,  the  permanence  with  which  the 
planter  expects  to  be  engaged,  in  cotton-raising,  and  the 
depth  and  richness  of  the  land  he  is  cultivating. 

The  principle  of  the  cotton-gin  is  simple,  and  its  mechan- 
ism is  not  complicated.  The  ingenuity  and  patience  dis- 
played by  Eli  Whitney  in  inventing  and  perfecting  this 
machine,  and  the  wonderful  effect  it  has  had  in  the  social 
and  political  economy  of  the  world,  are  spoken  of  more 
fully  in  the  closing  chapter  of  this  treatise.  But  at  this 
point  in  cotton  producing,  every  good  planter  must  become, 
to  some  extent,  a  mechanic ;  for  no  person  can  successfully 
operate  with  a  machine  like  the  cotton-gin,  who  does  not 
quite  thoroughly  understand  the  precise  mode  in  which  it 
operates,  when  it  does  the  work  well,  and  when  imper- 
fectly, and  how  its  different  parts  are  to  be  adjusted  so  as 
to  perform  their  office  in  the  best  manner. 

Take  a  wooden  cylinder,  say  four  feet  long,  and  five 
inches  in  diameter.  Fasten  upon  it  a  series  of  small  cir- 
cular saws,  say  nine  inches  in  diameter,  so  that  the  edge 
will  rise  two  inches  above  the  cylinder  all  around.  Let 
there  be  eighty  of  these  saws ;  they  will  be  set  upon  the 
cylinder  a  fraction  over  half  an  inch  apart.  The  teeth  of 
these  saws  are  filed,  so  as  turn  from  you  as  you  stand  be- 
fore the  cylinder.  Now  place  your  cylinder,  thus  armed 


COTTON  CULTTTEE.  47 

with  its  thousands  of  little  saw  teeth,  upon  bearings,  and 
let  it  revolve,  bringing  a  considerable  mass  of  cotton  in 
the  seed  to  press  against  these  teeth.  It  is  easy  to  see  that, 
if  the  cylinder  revolves  rapidly,  the  teeth  must  very  soon 
pull  off  the  lint  from  the  seeds  to  which  it  is  attached. 
These  teeth  play  between  steel  bars,  which  allow  the  lint, 
but  not  the  seed  to  pass. 

Now  below  the  saws  fit  a  set  of  stiff  brushes  upon  an- 
other cylinder,  and  let  them  revolve  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion. Their  effect  will  be  to  brush  off  and  clear  away 
from  the  saw-teeth  of  the  cylinder  the  lint  which  they 
have  just  pulled  from  the  seed/  You  need  now  a  fan,  re- 
volving so  as  to  -make  a  blast  of  air,  in  order  to  throw  the 
light  and  downy  lint,  which  has  thus  been  liberated,  to  a 
convenient  distance  from  the  revolving  saws  and  brushes. 

These  three  are  the  essential  parts  of  the  Whitney  cot- 
ton-gin. All  the  rest  is  cabinet  work.  A  number  of  im- 
provements have,  of  late  years,  been  made  in  this  machine, 
the  effect  of  which  is  to  pick  the  cotton  more  perfectly 
from  the  seed,  to  prevent  the  teeth  from  cutting  the 
staple,  and  to  give  greater  regularity  to  its  operations. 
But  when  you  have  purchased  a  gin,  the  principal  consid- 
eration will  be,  how  to  place  it  in  such  a  wa»y  that  the 
cotton  may  be  brought  to  it  with  the  least  labor,  and  how 
the  lint  may  be  taken  to  the  screw,  or  other  arrangement 
for  pressing,  with  the  greatest  convenience. 

The  power  for  driving  the  gin  is  produced  by  two  or 
more  horses  acting  on  an  upright,  which  revolves  on  an 
iron  pivot.  Horizontal  arms  extend,  say,  ten  feet.  There 
are,  usually,  four  of  these  arms,  to  which  the  horses  are 
attached.  At  the  upper  end  of  this  vertical  revolving 
shaft,  is  a  large  cog-wheel,  say  twenty  feet  in  diameter, 
the  teeth  of  which  play  into  a  ratchet  wheel,  to  the  axle 
of  which  a  large  drum  is  attached.  This  gearing  gives 
sufficient  rapidity  of  motion  to  the  drum,  from  which  a 
band  passes  directly  to  the  gin. 


48 


COTTON   CULTUEE. 


A.  and  IB  represent  respectively  the  first  and  second 
stories  of  a  gin-house.  V  S  (Fig.  8)  is  a  vertical  shaft,  with 
horizontal  arms,  to  which  horses  are  attached  at  h  and  A, 
which  pull  around  in  the  dotted  path.  At  the  south  end 
of  the  building,  8  represents  an  iron  screw  working  in  a 
strong  frame,  and  driven  upward  by  a  mule,  m,  towards 
.P,  the  packing-box,  which  opens  in  the  second  story. 

6r,  in  this  story,  (Fig.  9,)  is  the  gin,  which  discharges  gin- 
ned cotton  into  L  the  lint  room,  where  it  is  picked  up  by  the 


Fig.  8 


Fiff.  9. 


armful,  and  thrown  into  the  packing-box ;  W,  W,  TFJ  TFJ 
are  windows,  so  placed  as  to  throw  strong  light  on  6r,  the 
gin,  and  P,  the  press ;  the  short  lines,  M,  M,  represent  a 
double  open  staircase,  up  which  the  seed-cotton  is  carried 
on  the  shoulders  of  the  laborers.  They  go  up  one  flight, 
and  down  the  other,  so  as  not  to  interfere  with  each  other. 
In  the  latter  part  of  the  picking  season,  after  the  fall 
rains  set  in,  much  of  the  cotton  which  comes  from  the 


^ 

COTTOX    CULTUlrE^V  / 

field  will  be  damp,  not  to  say  wet,  ^n'djnmch  01  tlfej 

was  picked  dry,  and  has  been  stt&exJ .in  ^tij$syp«r  sheds,  Vill^  . 

be  too  damp  for  the  gin.  •/, ; 

The  rule  is  that  no  cotton  is  fit  to  gin  utrfe^  tl 
snaps  brittle  between  the  teeth.  Hence  a 
paniment  of  every  gin  is  a  scaffolding,  more  or  less 
sive,  upon  which  the  cotton  may  be  sunned.  In  most 
cases,  this  scaffolding  consists  of  boards  rudely  supported 
on  blocks  or  stakes  driven  in  the  earth,  and,  where  the 
amount  of  cotton  to  be  sunned  is  not  large,  a  permanent 
and  more  expensive  arrangement  would  hardly  pay.  But 
on  the  lower  bottoms  of  the  Cotton  States,  what  with  the 
heavy  dews,  frequent  rains,  and  late  picking,  there  is  al- 
ways a  great  deal  of  cotton  on  the  scaffold.  Hence  it  be- 
comes important  that  it  should  be  so  arranged  as  to  afford 
the  utmost  convenience  in  handling;  for  every  laborer 
unnecessarily  kept  around  the  gin-house,  is  so  much  sub- 
tracted from  the  picking  force.  There  is  no  reason  why 
two  hands,  with  a  boy  to  drive  the  mules,  should  not  con- 
duct all  parts  of  the  ginning  process,  but  the  practice  has 
been  to  have  three,  four,  and  sometimes  five  hands,  more 
or  less,  busy  about  a  gin-house. 

The  side  view,  presented  on  the  next  page,  will  give  a 
tolerably  clear  conception  of  a  very  convenient  arrange- 
ment for  drying  cotton. 

The  gin-house  is  presumed  to  stand  north  and  south, 
giving  at  its  southern  end  a  sunny  exposure,  where  the 
scaffold,  S,  is  erected.  It  will  be  seen  that  this  scaffold 
extends  from  the  left,  or  third  story,  in  a  gradual  slope  to 
within  six  feet  of  the  ground.  It  is  supported  by  posts, 
which  should  be  charred  at  the  lower  end  to  prevent  decay. 
At  the  end  next  the  building,  it  is  high  enough  to  enable 
a  loaded  wagon  to  drive  under,  and  discharge  cotton  that 
is  perfectly  dry  into  either  story  of  the  gin-house.  The 
slope  of  the  scaffold  should  be  so  gentle  as  to  admit  of 
easy  walking  upon  it,  and  should  be  roofed  with  some 
3 


50 


COTTON   CULTURE. 


material  as  tin  that  has  been  sanded,  or  felt  roofing  covered 
with  gravel,  so  as  not  to  become  slippery,  which  would  be 
the  case  with  shingles  or  boards.  The  shelter  beneath  this 
scaffolding  affords  ample  and  convenient  room  for  storing 
a  hundred  bales  of  cotton. 

When  a  load  of  cotton  comes  in  from  the  field  wet  or 
damp,  it  can  be  driven  close  alongside  of  this  scaffold,  and 
rapidly  unloaded.  If  the  day  is  clear,  a  few  hours  of  sun 
will  fit  it  for  the  gin,  and  the  labor  of  putting  it  into  bas- 
kets, and  carrying  up  the  gentle  slope  into  the  loft  of  the 


Fig.  10.— GIN-HOUSE  WITH  SCAFFOLD. 

gin-house  is  very  moderate.  C  C  represents  a  broad  sheet 
of  painted  canvass,  which  is  rolled  around  a  pole  after  the 
manner  of  a  street  awning.  In  clear  weather  this  canvass 
is  kept  snugly  rolled  at  the  upper  end  of  the  scaffolding, 
just  under  the  threshold  of  the  loft  door.  In  case  of  a  sud- 
den shower,  instead  of  calling  hands  from  the  field  to  hurry 
the  cotton  under  shelter,  two  hands  can  take  hoM  of  the 
opposite  ends  of  the  canvass  pole,  and  in  two  minutes 
have  everything  on  the  scaffold  securely  protected  from 
wet.  An  arrangement  of  this  sort  is  evidently  a  great 
labor  saver,  and  is  almost  equal  to  the  addition  of  another 
hand  to  the  picking  force. 

These  arrangements  for  ginning  and  baling  cotton  are 


COTTOX    CULTTKE.  51 

described,  not  as  being  in  the  nature  of  things  the  best  that 
might  be  devised,  but  as  those  in  common  use  throughout 
the  South. 

None  of  the  presses  on  the  plantations  are  as  effective 
as  they  might  be,  and  the  result  is  that  all  of  the  crop  that 
is  packed  into  the  holds  of  ships  at  Charleston,  Mobile, 
New  Orleans,  and  Galveston,  three-fourths  or  four-fifths  of 
all  the  staple  grown  has  to  be  pressed  and  bound  over 
again.  The  average  expense  of  receiving,  storing,  pressing, 
and  binding  over,  hauling  down  to  the  wharves  and  deliv- 
ering to  the  vessels,  of  a  cotton  crop,  is  two  dollars  per 
bale,  and  almost  the  whole  of  this  is  unnecessary.  The 
number  of  bales  received  and  shipped  at  New  Orleans  in 
1860  was,  in  round  numbers,  a  million.  This  million  of 
bales  paid  to  draymen,  shipping  clerks,  cotton-press  men 
and  the  owners  of  cotton  sheds,  and  commission  merchants, 
two  millions  of  dollars,  all  of  which  came  out  of  the  plant- 
ers, and  the  greater  part  of  which  could  have  been  avoided 
by  sending  the  cotton  to  market  in  compact,  square  bales, 
thoroughly  pressed,  and  well  bound.  Suppose,  for  in- 
stance, a  cotton  grower,  in  some  part  of  the  Mississippi 
Valley,  produces  annually  five  hundred  bales,  which  he 
sends  to  market  in  the  usual  way.  At  a  moderate  calcu- 
lation he  pays  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  bale  in  New  Orleans, 
for  having  his  cotton  pressed  over  and  for  the  hauling, 
storing,  and  waste  incident  to  that  operation.  Thus  his 
defective  packing  costs  him  seven  hundred  and  fifty  dol- 
lars a  year.  Now,  five  hundred  dollars  would  erect  for 
him  a  strong  press,  operating  on  the  hydraulic  principle,  in 
which  he  could  make  as  small  a  bale  as  can  be  made  in  the 
powerful  steam  presses  of  New  Orleans.  But  he  need  not 
resort  to  a  hydraulic  press.  The  patentees  of  several  of 
the  improved  hay  and  cotton-presses  in  use  throughout 
the  Northern  States,  will  agree  for  one  hundred  dollars 
more  than  the  cost  of  the  common  iron  or  wooden  screw 
arrangement,  to  put  him  up  a  press,  simple  in  principle 


52  COTTON   CULTURE. 

and  easy  in  its  operation,  that  will  put  four  hundred  pounds 
of  cotton  into  forty  cubic  feet,  which  is  about  the  degree 
of  compression  given  by  the  steam  press.  There  i's  an- 
other important  advantage  to  be  gained  by  putting  the 
cotton  into  small  compact  bales.  Its  freight  will  cost  a 
third  or  a  half  less,  whether  by  car  or  steamboat,  it  will 
waste  less  in  handling,  and,  if  bound  with  iron  hoops,  will 
be  in  far  less  danger  of  destruction  by  fire. 

Of  late  the  iron  hoop  or  tie  has  rapidly  superseded  the 
rope  in  former  use,  and  it  has  the  recommendation  of  being 
cheaper  as  well  as  every  way  better. 

It  makes  a  neat,  firm  looking  bale,  not  liable  to  burst 
from  the  untying  or  cutting  of  the  ropes,  and,  as  a  grand 
advantage,  the  iron  hoops  hold  the  cotton  so  compactly 
that  in  case  of  a  fire  only  the  surface  is  scorched. 

In  general,  the  hoop  used  among  planters  is  too  narrow, 
being  less  than  an  inch.  If  the  cotton  growers  would  use 
better  presses,  so  as  to  force  the  usual  number  of  pounds 
into  a  third  or  half  less  space  than  a  four  hundred-pound 
bale  usually  occupies,  and  then  confine  it  with  eight  to  ten 
hoops  an  inch  or 'an  inch  and  a  quarter  wide,  the  package 
would  leave  the  gin-house  in  a  condition  to  make  the  trip 
to  Manchester  or  Lowell  without  damage  from  fire,  water, 
or  rough  and  frequent  handling. 

Since  the  effect  of  the  recent  war  in  opening  the  South 
to  free  labor,  and  the  application  of  Yankee  ingenuity  in 
overcoming  the  various  problems  and  difficulties  in  cotton- 
growing,  several  cotton  presses,  new  in  their  design  and 
admirable  in  their  principle,  have  been  submitted  to  the 
cotton  growing  community. 

Among  these  one  of  the  best  is  that  patented  in  1860,  by 
P.  G.  Gardner.  The  cut  of  this  admirable  press  which  faces 
this  page,  needs  but  little  explanation.  The  effect  of  turning 
the  large  cast  iron  wheels  on  each  side  of  the  press,  is  to 
move  the  screws  c  and  d  with  great  force  in  the  direction 
desired.  These  screws  are  fastened  to  a  and  #3  cast  iron 


COTTON    CULTURE. 


53 


shafts,  which  move  on  the  track  laid  for  them  by  the 
wheels  at  their  ends. 

At  their  upper  ends,  these  shafts  are  connected  by  a 
toggle-joint,  above  which  is  the  follower,  which  moves  up 
and  down  in  the  packing-box.  This  cut  represents  the 


Fig.  11. — P.  G.  GARDNER'S  COTTON  PRESS. 

position  of  the  machinery  when  the  bale  is  compressed, 
that  is,  when  the  toggle-joint  and  the  follower  are  at 
the  top  of  the  packing-box.  By  turning  the  wheels  in 
the  opposite  direction  from  which  they  were  turned  to 
carry  the  follower  up,  a  will  be  brought  over  to  the  left 


54  COTTON    CULTURE. 

side  of  the  press,  and  b  to  the  right  side.  This  will  lower 
the  follower  to  the  bottom  of  the  packing-box,  when  it 
may  be  filled  with  a  new  charge  from  the  lint  room, 
beneath  which  it  should  be  set  up. 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  by  those  at  all  familiar  with  the 
mechanical  principles,  that  a  combination  of  the  toggle  or 
elbow-joint  with  the  screw  and  lever,  gives  immense  power 
to  this  press.  And  the  power  is  applied  in  just  the  way  to 
have  the  greatest  effect  upon  a  material  so  elastic  as  cot- 
ton. It  is  the  last  foot  or  two  feet  of  the  compression 
that  demands  power.  The  old  wooden  or  iron  screw  will 
make  a  bale  from  three  to  four  feet  thick  without  much 
difficulty.  But  this  press  will  take  an  ordinary  bale,  and 
compress  it  to  a  thickness  of  two  feet,  for  it  is  the  pecu- 
liarity of  the  toggle-joint  piece,  that  its  power  becomes 
enormous  when  the  two  shafts  that  compose  it  approach  a 
perpendicular  or  straight  line. 

The  size  of  a  bale,  when  pressed  by  this  machine,  is  five 
and  a  half  feet  long,  two  wide,  and  about  three  feet  high. 
Within  this  space,  which  is  almost  exactly  a  cubic  yard,  or 
twenty-seven  solid  feet,  five  hundred  pounds  can  be  com- 
pressed by  two  stout  men  working  for  five  minutes  on  the 
wheels.  Now,  the  average  dimensions  of  the  New  Orleans 
bale,  which  contains  four  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  is 
thirty-two  cubic  feet.  That  is;  after  the  action  of  the  im- 
mense steam  compress,  the  ordinary  New  Orleans  bale  of 
commerce  is  five  solid  feet  larger  and  fifty  pounds  lighter, 
than  the  package  which  two  hands  can  produce  at  the 
plantation  with  this  improved  and  powerful  press. 

The  cut  (Fig.  12)  represents  a  Plantation  Cotton  Press, 
which  is  worked  exclusively  by  hand-power,  with  the  bale 
packed,  sacked,  and  tied,  and  ready  to  be  turned  out.  It 
is  made  by  Messrs.  Ingersoll  &  Dougherty,  Green  Point, 
Kings  Co.,  N.  Y.  Other  presses,  to  be  worked  by  horse- 
power, are  made  by  the  same  parties,  under  patents  issued 
April  15,  1856;  June  16,  1863;  July  28,  1863;  and  Janu- 


COTTON   CULTURE. 


55 


aiy  24,  1865.  The  manufacture  of  this  press  was  com- 
menced in  the  spring  of  1856.  Since  that  time  over  3000 
of  them  have  been  put  in  use,  and  the  very  excellent  rep- 
utation which  they  have  gained,  as  cheap,  portable,  and 


Fig.  13. — INGERSOLL'S  COTTON  PRESS. 

convenient  presses,  induces  us  to  present  it  here  as  one  of 
the  necessary,  useful,  and  labor-saving  machines,  required 
by  the  planter  in  preparing  his  crop  for  transportation  and 
a  market. 

Two  hands  only  are  required  to  work  it,  and  will  put 


56  COTTON    CULTURE. 

up,  in  good  shape  and  well  packed,  twenty  or  more  bales 
per  day. 

The  press  is  made  of  any  size  or  weight  of  bale  requir- 
ed, and  when  taken  apart,  it  comprises  6  to  7  packages 
convenient  for  handling  and  shipping,  and  hence  is  well 
adapted  to  shipping  to  Central  and  South  America,  and 
other  foreign  countries,  where  they  are  often  taken  on  the 
backs  of  mules  to  the  interior  of  the  country,  and  the  cot- 
ton packed  and  brought  back  to  the  coast  in  bales  of 
about  125  to  200  Ibs.  each. 

The  "No.  I  Press  makes  a  bale  of  300  Ibs.,  or  under,  and 
its  gross  weight  is  800  to  1100  Ibs.  This  size  is  mostly 
made  for  foreign  shipment. 

No.  2. — Weight  of  bale  400  Ibs. ;  gross  weight  of  Press 
1600  Ibs. 

No.  3. — Weight  of  bale  500  Ibs. ;  weight  of  Press  1900 
Ibs.  Its  portable  form  admits  of  its  being  set  alongside 
of  the  gin  and  close  to  the  cotton,  or  on  any  floor  of  the 
building. 

When  the  irons  get  worn  out  or  broken,  duplicates  can 
be  sent  by  Express  to  any  part  of  the  country,  at  little 
expense.  Catalogues  with  price-lists,  etc.,  can  be  obtained 
by  addressing  the  manufacturers. 

The  cut  (Fig.  13)  represents  Ingersoll's  Bale  Rope  Tight- 
ener, patented  June  25th,  1867.  The  same  parties  also  man- 
ufacture the  Iron  Hoop  and  Wire  Tightener.  These  are 
cheap  and  very  convenient  tools  for  drawing  rope,  hoop, 
or  wire  tight  on  cotton  or  hay  bales.  The  cut  shows  the 
application  of  the  Bale  Rope  Tightener.  Every  person 
baling  cotton  will  find  this  a  desirable  tool.  Fig.  2  shows 
the  point  of  the  lever,  with  the  clamps  and  the  mode  of 
putting  the  rope  through  them. 

The  well-informed  and  successful  cotton  grower  is  more 
than  a  mere  routine  agriculturalist.  As  he  needs  some 
knowledge  of  mechanics,  and  facility  in  planning  convenient 
arrangements  about  his  gin-house,  so  in  securing  the  best 


COTTON    CULTURE. 


57 


price  for  his  great  staple,  he  requires  to  know  some- 
thing of  the  great  laws  of  supply  and  demand  in  cot- 
ton, so  as  to  form  a  correct  and  intelligent  judgment  as  to 
whether  he  shall  sell  or  hold. 


Fig.  13.— IXGEBSOLL'S  BALE  ROPE  TIGHTENEE. 

It  is  of  great  importance  that  he  establish  with  the  mer- 
chant and  the  broker  a  high  reputation  for  honor  and  cor- 
rectness in  packing  his  staple,  and  preparing  it  for  market. 

When  George  Washington  was  largely  engaged  in  to- 
bacco growing,  he  shipped  directly  from  the  Potomac  to 
London.  There  the  tobacco  inspectors  opened  eacli  hogs- 
head to  examine  and  pronounce  upon  its  quality.  After 
3* 


58  COTTON   CULTURE. 

opening  a  great  many  of  Washington's  hogsheads,  they 
were  satisfied  that  he  never  sent  anything  but  "  prime ;" 
so  at  length  they  gave  over  examining  tobacco  that  came 
with  the  brand  "  G.  W." 

This  should  be  the  ambition  of  every  producer  of  a  great 
staple.  His  brand  should  be  a  pledge  of  high  quality  and 
entire  reliability  as  to  the  manner  in  which  it  is  packed. 
The  planter  should  also  graduate  his  expenses,  and  manage 
his  account  current  with  his  factor,  in  such  a  way  as  to  be 
able  to  take  advantage  of  the  market,  and  sell  when  he 
chooses,  not  as  soon  as  he  can.  He  should  keep  posted  as 
to  the  cotton  supply  in  England  and  elsewhere,  and  be 
able  to  give  his  merchant  sound  instructions  as  to  what  to 
do  with  his  shipments. 

The  machinery  by  which  the  producer  of  cotton  com- 
municates with  the  spinner  and  weaver  should  be  as  simple 
as  possible. 

Probably  three-fourths  of  the  crop  is  taken  to  market 
on  steamboats,  which  land  often  within  a  hundred  yards 
of  the  planter's  door. 

They  then  go  down  to  the  exporting  cities,  as  Mobile, 
New  Orleans,  Savannah,  Galveston,  and  often  pass  directly 
by  the  ships  that  have  come  from  New  York,  Boston, 
Liverpool,  Havre,  Antwerp,  and  St.  Petersburg,  and  are 
waiting  to  take  in  a  cargo  of  cotton.  ISTow,  in  the  nature 
of  things,  what  reason  is  there  why  the  steamboat  should 
not  run  alongside  the  ship,  and  discharge  her  cargo  directly 
into  the  hold  of  the  sea-going  vessel,  a  gang  of  stevedores 
being  at  hand  to  stow  it  away,  the  agent  of  the  foreign 
purchaser  being  on  board  the  ship,  and  sending  back  to 
the  planter  an  account  of  sale  and  bill  of  lading,  with  a 
sight  or  a  sixty  or  ninety  day  draft  for  the  price  ?  How 
much  delay,  commission,  waste,  brokerage,  vexation  and 
loss  might  be  avoided  by  a  transaction  so  direct ! 

In  that  case,  and  at  present  prices,  (December,  1866,) 
the  hundred  bale  cotton  grower,  whom  we  have  been  fol- 


COTTOX   CULTURE.  59 

lowing  in  his  routine  of  plowing,  planting,  cultivating, 
picking,  ginning,  and  pressing  a  crop,  might,  early  in  the 
year  following,  put  his  cotton  in  a  Liverpool  bottom,  and 
receive  his  payment  in  a  check  on  the  Bank  of  England  for 
twelve  thousand  dollars  in  British  gold. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

THE  COTTON  PLANTER'S  CALENDAR. 

What  follows  is  in  the  nature  of  a  summary  and  reca- 
pitulation of  much  that  has  been  set  forth  in  detail,  in  the 
foregoing  five  chapters.  It  is  calculated  for  about  the 
middle  of  the  cotton  belt,  or  the  lands  where  cotton  is  pro- 
duced, between  the  thirty-second  and  the  thirty-fourth 
degree  of  north  latitude.  Some  other  crops,  such  as  corn, 
peas,  and  oats  are  alluded  to,  as  they  are  cultivated  more 
or  less  on  every  plantation. 

JAXUAEY. 

The  gin  is  to  be  kept  running  most  of  the  time  during 
this  month  on  last  year's  crop.  It  is  best  to  have  a  con- 
venient scaffold  arranged  on  the  south  side  of  your  gin,  of 
nn  easy  slope,  and  passing  directly  to  the  gin  loft,  so  that 
cotton  can  be  taken  from  the  sheds  or  cribs,  dried,  and 
carried  up  to  where  it  will  feed  itself  into  the  gin,  or  can 
be  pulled  in  by  the  operator  before  the  stand. 

Read  the  papers,  keep  informed  as  to  rise  or  decline  iu 
the  cotton  market,  the  supply  and  demand. 

Have  a  powerful  press,  sufficient  to  put  four  hundred 
pounds  into  the  space  of  forty  cubic  feet.  Use  wide  iron 
hoops,  and  plenty  of  them.  Look  well  after  the  ends  of 
your  bales,  and  see  that  they  are  perfectly  snug. 


60  COTTON    CULTURE. 

On  pleasant  days,  the  hands  may  be  breaking  down  the 
cotton  stalks,  or  clearing  new  land. 

This  is  a  good  time  also  to  fill  up  washes  and  old  gulches 
in  the  field,  and  prevent  little  ones  from  growing  any 
larger.  Cut  down  pine  bushes,  and  lay  them  in  the  washes 
lengthwise;  cane  from  the  cane-brakes  answers  the  same 
purpose  very  well.  Take  care  of  your  cotton  seed  at  this 
time.  That  which  is  intended  for  planting,  should  be 
stored  in  a  shed  or  loft,  where  the  air  has  free  access,  and 
stirred  to  prevent  fermentation.  The  rest  should  be  care- 
fully saved  for  manure.  The  ashes  of  it  were  found,  by 
one  analysis,  to  contain  fifty-five  per  cent  of  potash,  and 
if  it  is  faithfully  returned  to  the  cotton  field,  and  your 
lands  prevented  from  washing,  cotton  will  be  found  a  very 
slow  exhauster  of  the  soil. 

FEBRUARY 

You  must  expect  numerous  and  heavy  rains  this  month, 
but  on  porous  soils,  after  the  twelfth  or  fifteenth,  it  will  be 
dry  enough  to  plow. 

This  is  the  proper  time  for  projecting  the  crop  of  another 
year,  obtaining  hands,  fixing  them  in  comfortable  quarters, 
and  purchasing  additional  mules  and  other  stock. 

Cut  and  haul  a  supply  of  wood.  Haul  out  your  cotton 
seed  and  other  manures,  and  spread  them  on  the  fields. 
Decide  as  to  rotation  of  crops ;  where  you  will  have  your 
cotton,  where  your  corn,  oats,  and  sweet  potatoes. 

After  the  middle  of  the  month,  whenever  it  is  dry  enough, 
let  the  two-horse  plows  be  throwing  up  beds  for  the  cot- 
ton rows.  Four  feet  apart  on  hill  lands,  and  five  or  five 
and  a  half  in  the  swamp,  is  the  rule. 

Cotton  that  stands  thick,  will  produce  as  many  open  bolls 
before  frost  as  that  which  is  thinner,  and  it  is  the  open 
bolls  before  frost  that  will  give  you  the  best  cotton. 

Get  in  a  few  acres  of  oats. 


COTTON   CULTURE.  61 

3IAKCH. 

The  first  plowing  continued  briskly.  Corn  lands  plowed 
thoroughly,  and  oats  sowed.  Have  a  large  kitchen  garden, 
raise  plenty  of  cabbages,  sugar  beets,  carrots,  parsnips, 
onions,  okra,  and  melons. 

A  cotton  soil  and  climate  are  exactly  suited  to  melons, 
and  it  will  pay  to  put  an  acre  in  watermelons  and  can- 
telopes* 

This  is  a  proper  time  for  working  plantation  roads,  filling 
up  the  washes,  and  laying  off  circle  ditches  on  hill  lands. 
By  circle  ditching  and  circle  plowing,  you  can  cultivate  a 
soil,  that  is  as  mellow  as  an  ash  heap,  on  a  side  hill,  and 
yet  keep  it  from  washing  away. 

Observation  will  teach  you  what  foil  a  ditch  may  have, 
and  not  wash.  It  is  different  in  different  soils.  A  fall  of 
an  inch  in  ten  feet  is  the  rule  that  some  follow. 

If  the  season  is  early  and  dry,  you  can  plant  in  the  last 
of  March.  It  is  desirable  to  get  your  corn  planting  out  of 
the  way  before  you  commence  on  cotton. 

APEIL. 

A  busy  month  this  for  the  cotton  planter.  He  must 
make  every  edge  cut,  particularly  if  he  has  grassy  fields. 
The  first  of  the  month  will  be  taken  up  with  cotton  plant- 
ing. You  cannot  be  too  thorough  or  particular  in  getting 
in  your  seed.  Aim  to  have  mellow  beds,  and  straight, 
even  rows.  Run  a  fine-toothed  harrow  over  the  tops  of 
your  beds,  and  fasten  on  the  cross-piece,  so  as  to  project 
behind  the  middle  of  the  harrow,  a  triangular  piece  of 
wood,  with  the  edge  down,  so  as  to  make  a  clean,  even 
trench  for  your  seed,  which  should  be  soaked  in  a  fertiliz- 
ing mixture  a  day  or  two,  and  rolled,  while  damp,  in  ashes 
:in<i  plaster. 

Drop  your  seeds  at  intervals  of  an  inch  or  two  in  the 
bottom  of  the  little  trench,  and  cover  with  a  board  attached 
to  a  light  plow,  notched  so  as  to  fit  the  curve  of  the  bed. 


62  COTTON   CULTURE. 

As  soon  as  your  cotton  is  planted,  go  over  your  corn 
for  the  first  time,  and  turn  immediately  back  to  the  cotton 
field  to  give  it  the  first  working. 

Try  the  Shanghai  plow  for  the  first  working.  Some 
planters  speak  very  highly  of  it.  You  may,  perhaps,  do 
almost  as  well  by  taking  out  the  three  forward  hoes  of 
your  cultivator,  and  passing  it  along  above  the  young 
plants  and  astride  of  the  row. 

Let  the  hoes  follow  the  plows,  cutting  away  two  breadths 
of  a  common  hoe,  thus  leaving  a  clump  of  plants  at  inter- 
vals of  about  a  foot  and  a  half.  In  some  cases,  where  your 
plants  are  vigorous,  and  the  season  pushes,  it  may  do  very 
well  to  cut  away  to  a  stand  at  once,  or,  at  least,  so  as  to 
leave  but  two  thrifty  plants  in  a  place.  At  all  events, 
keep  down  the  grass.  If  you  have  to  go  over  your  crop 
once  in  a  week,  get  the  grass  under  now,  and  it  will  not 
give  you  much  trouble  during  the  rest  of  the  season. 

MAY. 

Another  crowding  month  on  a  cotton  farm.  Both  crops, 
your  corn  and  your  cotton,  demand  attention,  and  neglect 
now  can  never  be  made  up. 

During  the  first  half  of  May  you  will  give  the  cotton  its 
most  thorough  working.  Let  the  plows  keep  a  brisk  pace 
if  they  have  much  ground  to  go  over.  They  should  go 
around  the  first  time  moulding  the  rows,  and  be  followed 
close  by  the  hoes,  to  uncover  the  plants  that  have  been 
buried  by  the  plow  running  too  near.  Then  the  middles 
should  be  broken  out,  and  the  crop  left  perfectly  clean, 
cut  out  to  a  permanent  stand,  and  the  ground  all  stirred. 

After  running  two  furrows  to  each  row,  so  the  hoes  can 
go  over  the  crop,  it  may  be  advisable  to  put  the  plows  into 
the  corn  field,  and  let  them  go  through  that  before  break- 
ing out  the  middles  of  the  cotton.  Some  time  must  be 
found  also  for  the  potato  patch.  Work  them  clean  and 


COTTON   CULTURE.  63 

hill  up  thoroughly.     The  vines  will  soon  monopolize  the 
surface,  and  exclude  the  weeds  and  grass. 

Towards  the  last  of  the  month,  get  the  plows  back  into 
the  cotton.  The  sweep  is  probably  the  best  implement  to 
put  into  the  field  now.  Any  blacksmith  can  convert  a 
common  bull-tongue  or  a  scooter  plow  into  a  sweep  or 
eagle,  by  putting  a  wing  to  the  lower  part  of  the  coulter, 
two  or  three  inches  from  the  point.  A  good  plowman  can 
carry  his  sweep  within  two  inches  of  the  line  of  plants 
without  killing  any.  This  greatly  abridges  the  labor  of 
the  hoe  hands. 

JUXE. 

In  this  month  the  cultivation  of  cotton  must  vary  some-' 
what  with  the  season  and  the  soil. 

If  you  are  planting  on  rolling  or  hilly  land,  and  the 
season  is  dry,  throw  up  a  considerable  furrow  from  the 
middle  to  the  roots  of  the  plant.  On  bottom  land  this  is 
unnecessary,  for  cotton  on  alluvial  soil  seldom  suffers  much 
from  drouth.  On  the  other  hand,  on  flat  lands,  if  the 
season  is  wet,  you  will  have  to  throw  up  a  ridge  to  pre- 
vent water  from  settling  around  the  roots. 

The  plows  continue  to  run  actively  all  this  month,  both 
in  corn  and  cotton.  It  is  well  to  accustom  the  mules  and 
horses  to  a  rapid  walk  between  the  rows.  Use  an  animal 
but  half  of  these  long  hot  days.  Commence  early,  and  give 
a  long  nooning.  Hold  each  plowman  responsible  for  the 
condition  of  his  mule,  and  allow  a  bonus  or  extra  wages 
to  the  one  that  brings  his  animal  out  of  the  crop  in  the 
best  condition. 

Look  well  after  the  comfort  of  man  and  beast  these 
blazing  days,  when  the  thermometer  stands  at  120°  in  the 
field.  Give  the  hands  plenty  of  drink,  but  let  it  be  acid- 
ulated, such  as  vinegar  and  water,  or  buttermilk,  some- 
what diluted. 


64  COTTON  CULTURE. 

JULY. 

You  will  go  over  your  corn  for  the  last  time  this  month, 
if  the  season  is  dry.  A  stirring  of  the  soil  between  the 
rows  will  help  it  to  resist  the  effect  of  the  intense  heat, 
and  prevent  the  lower  leaves  from  "  firing."  Cotton  needs 
another  plowing,  but  if  the  previous  cultivation  has  been 
thorough,  the  crop  can  be  laid  by  the  last  of  this  month. 

As  soon  as  your  corn  is  "  past  roasting  ear,"  pull  fodder. 
As  this  work  is  by  no  means  easy,  and  comes  in  the  height 
of  midsummer  heat,  some  of  the  hands  are  quite  likely  to 
injure  themselves  unless  special  care  is  exercised. 

Drenched  as  they  are  with  perspiration,  they  must 
drink  frequently,  and  the  water  should  never  be  cold.  If 
vinegar  and  a  little  sugar  is  added,  all  the  better.  There 
is  no  use  in  pushing  laborers  now.  A  press  of  work  is 
soon  to  come,  and  you  do  not  want  to  start  a  set  of  jaded 
and  half-sick  hands  to  picking. 

Some  have  doubted  the  propriety  of  stripping  the  leaves 
from  Indian  corn  before  the  ears  are  mature.  You  lose 
a  little  in  the  weight  of  shelled  corn  and  in  its  fattening 
properties,  but  for  the  southern  climate  a  more  wholesome 
corn  is  produced  in  this  way,  than  by  allowing  the  whole 
plant  to  stand  till  dead  ripe.  It  will  not  be  so  heating  to 
animals,  and  the  bread  made  from  it  is  lighter  and  more 
palatable. 

AUGUST. 

The  picking  season  is  at  hand.  Store  your  dry  fodder, 
and  get  ready  to  send  every  hand  into  the  cotton  field. 

About  the  middle  of  the  month  you  will  observe  quite 
a  number  of  the  lower  or  ground  bolls  open.  As  soon  as 
a  picker  can  gather  fifty  pounds,  the  work  of  harvesting 
begins.  It  will  continue  three  and  a  half  or  four  months. 

This  is  the  time  of  year  to  be  on  the  watch  against  your 


COTTON   CULTURE.  65 

two  enemies,  the  cotton  worm  and  the  army  worm.  If 
they  make  an  attack  in  force,  your  crop  will  be  swept 
away  almost  as  soon  as  Jonah's  gourd.  The  army  worm 
is  much  less  insidious  in  its  advance  than  the  cotton  moth 
or  cotton  caterpillar,  and  you  can  arrest  the  march  of  the 
devouring  army  by  a  narrow,  sharp  cut  ditch  carried  all 
around  the  place.  If  you  hear  of  the  advancing  host 
from  the  south  or  south-west,  lose  no  time  in  starting 
your  double  plows  in  on  the  side  of  your  field  which  is 
threatened.  Throw  a  furrow  from  the  crop,,  and  let  the 
hoe  and  spade  follow,  clearing  out  and  cutting  down  till 
you  have  a  perpendicular  Avail  of  earth,  from  twelve  to 
eighteen  inches  high,  facing  the  enemy.  Feeble  as  this 
earthwork  appears  to  be,  it  is  enough  to  stop  the  march. 
As  soon  as  the  advance  guard  reaches  your  lands,  how- 
ever, a  strict  watch  must  be  kept,  lest  at  some  point  they 
find  a  low  place  in  the  earthen  wall  or  some  means  of 
scaling  it.  It  may  be  well  to  keep  the  double  plows  at 
hand,  in  order  to  deepen  and  clear  out  the  ditch  as  they 
come  piling  into  it. 

The  caterpillar,  cotton  worm  or  cotton  moth,  for  each 
of  these  names  is  applied  to  the  same  animal,  appears  also 
in  August.  You  will  see  a  few  pale  brown  millers  or 
moths  flitting  over  the  cotton  field.  By  watching,  you 
may  observe  the  insect  selecting  a  leaf  for  her  web  or  nest. 
She  will  generally  discover  the  place  of  her  eggs  by  cut- 
ting the  midriff  or  largest  fibre  of  the  leaf,  and  bending  it 
over  so  as  to  form  a  little  shelter  tent,  so  to  speak,  for  her 
young.  The  eggs  hatch  in  ten  days,  and  the  little  worms 
begin  at  once  to  devour  the  plant  upon  which  they  were 
born.  They  eat  constantly,  day  and  night,  growing  rap- 
idly to  the  length  of  about  an  inch  and  a  quarter.  The 
time  for  fighting  this  enemy  is  as  soon  as  you  see  the  first 
moth.  They  are  clumsy  and  slow  in  their  flight,  so  they 
can  be  struck  down  with  little  paddles  and  killed.  As 
some  will,  of  course,  escape  this  attack,  the  planter  should 


66  COTTON    CULTURE. 

look  carefully  through  the  rows  of  his  crop  for  the  leaves 
on  which  the  eggs  have  been  laid. 

With  a  little  practice,  the  eye  becomes  quick  at  detect- 
ing the  leaves  that  have  been  cut  and  bent  over.  These 
should  be  carefully  gleaned,  put  into  the  cotton  bags,  and 
burned. 

Some  have  succeeded  in  protecting  a  crop  by  catching 
the  moths  in  plates,  half  filled  with  a  mixture  of  molasses, 
vinegar,  and  cobalt,  and  exposed  at  numerous  points  over 
the  field. 

Every  preventive  and  each  mode  of  attacking  the  enemy 
should  be  employed.  Some  have  destroyed  a  great  num- 
ber of  these  pests  by  building  small  fires  in  different  parts 
of  the  field,  into  which  they  plunge  and  perish.  Others 
plant  white  flags  about  the  field,  upon  which  it  is  thought 
the  fly  deposits  its  eggs. 

SEPTEMBER. 

If  your  crop  was  rescued  from  the  devourers,  nothing 
now  remains  but  to  press  the  picking  as  actively  as  pos- 
sible. The  best  cotton  is  gathered  in  September  and 
October.  Provide  every  facility  for  your  hands,  good  bags 
with  open  mouths,  baskets,  and  a  scale  or  balance  that 
weighs  rapidly.  Give  hot  coffee  in  the  morning,  especially 
if  you  are  on  low  land,  encourage  fast  picking  by  corres- 
ponding wages,  and  manage  to  keep  them  out  of  the  night 
air.  You  can  ill  afford  to  have  hands  out  of  the  field  now 
with  chill  and  fever. 

OCTOBER. 

The  best  month  for  picking.  It  is  a  remarkable  set  of 
hands  that  can  average  two  hundred  pounds  all  around, 
yet,  among  a  force  of  twenty  pickers,  some  will  always 
bring  in  more  than  that  in  open  cotton. 


COTTOX   CULTUKE.  67 

Keep  the  morale  of  your  laborers  at  a  high  point.  A 
sad  heart  makes  the  motions  slow.  Hands  will  not  pick 
any  the  worse  the  next  day  for  having  danced  till  ten  or 
eleven  o'clock  the  night  before ;  and,  among  Africans  at 
least,  the  best  dancer  is  likely  to  be  the  best  picker. 

Unless  your  crop  is  very  large,  so  as  to  need  every  finger 
in  your  employ  to  pick  it  out,  the  best  time  for  sorting  the 
cotton  is  when  it  is  first  picked.  Before  November  you 
will  not  have  much  inferior  cotton.  After  frost  and  heavy 
rains  there  will  be  many  imperfect  bolls  t^hat  yield  a 
crumpled  or  kinky  staple,  and  much  cotton  will  be  beaten 
out  of  the  pods  by  driving  rains,  and  made  muddy  by 
earth  dashed  upon  it,  or  sand  driven  into  it.  This  can  be 
cleaned  so  as  to  be  but  little  inferior  to  choice  cotton,  but 
the  two  should  not  be  mixed,  as  the  trashy  will  lower  the 
price  of  the  clean  with  which  the  buyer  finds  it  mixed. 

Many  cotton  growers  have  a  "  trasher,"  a  simple  ma- 
chine, driven  by  a  band  from  the  drum,  which  cleans  the 
staple  by  whipping  it  against  a  series  of  pegs  or  teeth. 

Trashy  and  dirty  cotton  ought  to  be  dried  and  trashed 
before  being  stored  away  for  ginning. 

XOVEMBER. 

As  the  season  grows  cool,  the  picking  at  night  and 
morning  is  anything  but  pleasant. 

Nothing  will  be  gained  in  the  end  by  gathering  in  a 
cold  and  heavy  dew.  Let  there  be  fires  kindled  at  the 
baskets,  and  in  every  manner  seek  the  comfort  of  the 
hands,  for  the  staple  which  they  are  picking  now  is  some- 
what inferior,  and  their  encouragement  is  that  the  long 
pull  of  monotonous  and  wearisome  labor  is  nearly  over. 
If  the  market  is  favorable,  ginning  is  begun  this  month, 
and  often  much  earlier.  A  good  eighty  saw  gin  will  pick 
off  less  than  a  bale  an  hour,  say  eight  bales  in  ten  or  twelve 
hours.  But  this  rapid  ginning  generally  damages  the 
staple,  and  for  that  reason  is  not  recommended. 


68  COTTON   CULTURE. 

As  a  rule,  it  requires  as  many  pickers  as  there  are  saws 
on  a  cylinder  to  keep  a  gin  constantly  running.  Thus 
seventy-five  or  eighty  pickers  will  bring  in  at  night  as 
much  as  the  gin  will  run  out  the  next  day.  But  it  is  al- 
ways better  to  let  the  cotton  remain  in  the  seed  a  month 
or  more  after  being  picked.  The  staple  is  of  better  color 
and  weight. 

DECEMBEE. 

By  the  middle  of  this  month,  the  cotton  is  mostly  picked. 
]STow  the  corn  and  potatoes  are  gathered,  and  teams  are 
active  in  hauling  the  crop  to  a  market  or  shipping  point. 
The  baling  is  best  done  on  damp  or  rainy  days,  as  heat 
and  dryness  tend  to  extract  the  oil  from  the  fibre.  In 
some  parts  of  the  cotton  region,  it  is  advisable  to  put  a 
small  force  to  pulling  up  and  burning  the  stalks  as  soon 
as  picked,  preparatory  to  another  crop. 


PART   II. 

DETAILS,      DIFFICULTIES,      IMPROVEMENTS,       AND 

STATISTICS    RELATING    TO     COTTON    GROWING    IN 

THE    UNITED    STATES. 


CHAPTER     I. 

QUALITY,  EXTENT,  AND  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  COTTON. 
LANDS  OF  NORTH  AMERICA. 

That  region  of  the  United  States  where  cotton  is  a  prof- 
itable crop,  is  determined  somewhat  by  soil,  but  much 
more  by  the  intensity  of  summer  heat,  and  the  length  of 
the  growing  season.  The  extremes  of  the  cotton  belt  may 
be  snid,  in  a  general  way,  to  be  the  territory  included  be- 
tween the  thirtieth  and  fortieth  degrees  of  north  latitude. 
In  other  words,  cotton  can  be  produced  with  various 
degrees  of  profit  throughout  the  region  bounded  on  the 
north  by  a  line  passing  through  Philadelphia,  on  the 
south,  by  a  line  passing  a  little  south  of  New  Orleans,  and 
on  the  west,  by  a  line  passing  through  San  Antonio.  This 
is  the  limit  of  the  possibilities.  Not  more  than  one-half, 
and  that  the  lower  half  of  this  territory,  can  properly  be 
said  to  be  suited  to  the  growth  of  cotton. 

An  east  and  west  line  passing  through  Memphis  divides 
the  region  where  cotton  growing  is  materially  crippled  by 
69 


70  COTTON   CULTTJEE. 

the  shortness  of  the  season,  from  that  in  which  the  main 
difficulty  to  be  contended  with  is  soil,  not  climate.  When 
the  price  of  cotton  is  from  ten  to  fifteen  cents,  there  are 
parts  of  the  valley  of  the  lower  Tennessee,  a  region  between 
the  Tennessee  and  the  Mississippi,  of  which  Jackson  is  the 
center,  some  bottom  lands  in  the  northern  parts  of  Arkan- 
sas and  in  the  southern  part  of  Missouri,  and  a  limited 
area  in  North  Carolina,  where  cotton,  at  those  prices,  is  a 
profitable  crop. 

But  the  Cotton  States,  properly  speaking,  are  South 
Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama,  the  northern  part  of  Florida, 
Mississippi,  the  northern  half  of  Louisiana,  the  southern 
half  of  Arkansas,  and  the  eastern  half  of  Texas.  Within 
these  limits,  the  question  for  the  cotton  grower  is  one  of 
soil.  He  requires  to  know  what  parts  of  this  large  region 
afford  lands  sufficiently  rich  for  cultivation,  which  are  least 
exhausted,  and  what  river  bottoms  are  so  raised,  or  pro- 
tected from  overflow  as  to  be  safe  for  locating  a  planta- 
tion upon  them. 

Beginning  with  the  western  limit  of  the  region  above 
described,  let  us  move  eastward  towards  the  Atlantic 
States,  considering  the  cotton  growing  qualities  of  each 
of  the  States  above  mentioned. 

TEXAS. 

The  coast  of  Texas  for  fifty  or  sixty  miles  north-west 
from  the  tide-water  line  is  low  and  flat.  The  soil  is  deep, 
rich,  and  black,  suited  to  sugar  cane  as  well  as  cotton. 

But  drainage  is  difficult,  and  much  of  this  low  surface 
is  liable  to  be  invaded  by  sea-water  at  high  tides.  If 
leveed  from  the  sea,  and  ditched,  it  produces  abundant 
crops,  and  enjoying,  as  it  does,  a  sea  climate,  is,  on  that 
account,  well  adapted  to  the  growth  of  Sea  Island  cotton. 
Geologically,  all  the  coast  of  Texas,  and  the  soil  for  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty  or  two  hundred  miles  inland,  is  alluvial, 
being  formed  ]by  the  deposit  of  detritus  of  old  rivers  which 


COTTON   CULTURE.  71 

washed  clown  the  debris  of  secondary  rocks.  The  bed 
thus  formed  was  once  under  salt  water,  but  by  gradual 
upheaval,  has  been  lifted  to  a  moderate  elevation.  Thus, 
through  a  wide  belt,  Texas  affords  the  advantages  of  an 
alluvial  soil  without  the  dangers  of  overflow,  and  free 
from  the  miasms  of  river  bottoms. 

While  this  description  applies  generally  to  the  south- 
eastern half  of  the  State,  it  should  be  stated  that  the 
extreme  flatness  of  some  of  the  prairies  renders  them  unfit 
for  tillage,  and  the  bottom  lands  of  the  Guadalupe,  Colo- 
rado, Brazos,  and  Trinity,  especially  the  two  latter,  are 
subject  to  spring  overflow.  Yet  after  subtracting  the  flat 
prairie,  and  those  overflowed  bottoms  which  cannot  e"asily 
be  protected  by  levees,  there  remains  a  vast  breadth  of 
well-nigh  virgin  soil  in  this  State  admirably  adapted  to  the 
production  of  a  very  fine  staple  of  cotton. 

Throughout  this  region,  to  which  should  be  added  the 
superior  cotton  lands  near  Red  River,  on  the  north-eastern 
border,  the  average  yield  per  acre  is  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  of  cotton  in  the  seed,  or  about  three-quarters 
of  a  bale  of  ginned  cotton,  which  is  more  than  double  the 
average  yield  of  either  Tennessee  or  South  Carolina. 

As  an  unbroken  body  or  strip  of  cotton  land,  probably 
the  valley  of  the  Brazos  is  not  surpassed  on  the  American 
continent.  But  a  small  part  of  it  has  yet  been  brought 
under  the  plow.  The  bottom  is,  on  an  average,  includ- 
ing the  second  bottom  which  is  fully  as  fertile  as  the  imme- 
diate bank,  five  miles  wide,  and  between  three  and  four 
hundred  miles  long.  Here  are  included  a  million  of  acres, 
almost  every  square  rood  of  which  can  be  plowed,  and  all 
capable  of  producing  for  a  long  series  of  years  two  bales 
to  the  acre.  Thus  two-thirds  of  the  largest  of  American 
cotton  crops  might  be  grown  in  this  valley. 

Barely  less  productive  than  this  bottom  is  a  wide,  but 
irregular  body  of  lands,  lying  between  the  rivers,  and 
known  as  the  black  rolling  prairie.  The  dip  of  these  sur- 


72  COTTON   CULTURE. 

faces  is  sufficient  to  give  good  drainage,  yet  not  enough  to 
produce  washing.  The  soil  is  deep,  mellow,  and  warm, 
and  abounds  in  many  places  in  small,  white  shells,  showing 
at  once  detritus  and  sea-water  action. 

The  diseases  and  enemies  of  the  cotton  plant  have  rarely 
shown  themselves  on  these  lands.  They  are  easy  of  culti- 
vation, and  not  remote  from  market,  though  less  accessible 
than  those  of  the  Brazos  and  Trinity  bottoms.  At  a  low 
calculation,  there  are  a  million  of  acres  of  this  description, 
east  of  the  region  of  drought,  as  yet  uncultivated,  and  held 
at  moderate  rates. 

Then  the  bottoms  of  the  Guadalupe,  the  Colorado,  the 
Trinity,  and  the  Red  River  lands,  comprise  another  de- 
scription of  cotton  soil,  in  some  parts  superior,  and  in 
others  a  little  inferior  to  the  black  prairies.  On  the  Gua- 
dalupe lands,  it  is  indeed  remarkable  how  little  rain  gives 
a  crop. 

I  have  seen  six  hundred  and  seven  hundred  pounds  of 
ginned  cotton  per  acre  produced,  without  a  drop  of  rain 
on  the  plants  after  they  were  six  inches  high.  The  quality 
of  the  staple  thus  grown  is  superior  to  that  of  a  wet  season ; 
but  corn  is  nearly  an  impossible  crop  under  such  circum- 
stances. The  Colorado  River  may  be  said  to  divide  those 
parts  of  Texas  that  are  sufficiently  moist  from  those  which 
suffer  almost  every  summer  from  long  droughts. 

The  eastern  part  of  Texas,  that  is,  the  lands  drained 
west  into  the  Trinity,  and  east  into  the  Sabine,  is  gener- 
ally poor,  covered  to  a  great  extent  by  the  southern  pine. 
Yet  one-third,  perhaps,  of  this  surface,  where  the  pine  is 
considerably  interspersed  with  oak,  poplar,  and  magnolia, 
will  produce  from  three  to  four  hundred  pounds  of  lint 
cotton  per  acre. 

The  northern  and  western  parts  of  Texas,  comprising 
probably  two-thirds  or  three-fourths  of  the  two  hundred 
and  thirty-seven  thousand  square  miles  in  the  whole  State, 
are  grazing  and  grain  growing  lands ;  but  one-fourth  of  the 


COTTON   CULTURE.  73 

State,  an  area  equal  to  the  whole  of  Georgia,  is  admirably 
adapted  to  cotton,  and  capable,  with  due  allowance  for 
grazing  land  and  edible  crops,  of  yielding  a  larger  supply 
of  cotton  than  the  whole  South  ever  produced  in  one  year. 

LOUISIANA  AND   ARKANSAS. 

Red  River  may  be  said,  in  a  general  way,  to  divide  this 
State  into  two  distinct  regions,  one  adapted  to  the  raising 
of  cotton,  the  other  of  sugar.  The  part  east  of  the  Missis- 
sippi River,  and  south  of  the  line  of  the  State  of  Missis- 
sippi, commonly  called  the  Florida  parishes,  having  for- 
merly made  a  part  of  West  Florida,  is  to  a  great  extent 
composed  of  cotton  counties,  but  the  principal  part  of  the 
cotton  crop  of  Louisiana,  between  two  hundred  thousand 
and  three  hundred  thousand  bales,  grows  in  the  Red  River 
bottoms  above  Alexandria,  and  in  the  north-eastern  corner 
of  the  State,  a  triangular  extent  of  inexhaustibly  fertile 
land,  washed  on  the  east  by  the  Mississippi,  and  on  the 
west  by  the  Washita,  and  penetrated  by  the  Tensas,  the 
Little  Tensas,  Bayou.  Macon,  and  Bayou  Boeuf. 

This  region  is  wholly  alluvial,  two  hundred  miles  in 
length,  with  an  average  width  of  about  forty  miles,  thus 
giving  over  five  million  acres,  not  more  than  one-tenth  of 
which  is  incapable  of  cultivation.  A  greater  part  of  it  is, 
however,  subject  to  overflow,  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi 
being  kept  from  it  during  several  months  of  every  year  by 
high  embankments,  which  are  liable  at  any  time,  and  at 
almost  any  point,  to  burst. 

In  a  favorable  season,  these  lands  produce  a  bale  and  a 
half  to  the  acre,  but  this  region,  called  "  the  swamp  "  of 
Louisiana,  is  malarious,  an^l,  in  winter,  acute  diseases  of 
the  lungs  are  very  frequent,  so  that  when  the-  losses  by 
overflow,  and  the  disadvantages  of  sickness  and  almost 
impassable  roads  in  winter,  are  taken  into  account,  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  cotton  growing  is  not,  on  the  whole, 
4 


74  COTTON   CULTURE. 

less  profitable  here  than  in  the  hill  lands,  where  the  aver- 
age production  is  considerably  less  than  a  bale  to  the  acre, 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  Washita  and  its  tributaries 
extend  for  a  hundred  miles  or  more  into  the  southern  part 
of  Arkansas.  This  part  of  the  State,  embracing,  perhaps, 
half  of  what  lies  south  of  the  Arkansas  River,  is  an  excel- 
lent cotton  region,  not  liable  to  overflow,  except  imme- 
diately on  the  Mississippi,  and  having  a  climate  precisely 
adapted  to  the  growth  of  the  great  staple.  In  the  south- 
west corner  of  Arkansas,  the  lands  on  Red  River,  and  the 
streams  which  empty  into  it,  are  also  excellent  as  cotton 
lands. 

They  are,  however,  very  imperfectly  developed,  never 
having  produced  more  than  one-tenth  of  the  amount  they 
are  capable  of  producing.  Their  average  production,  the 
same  with  that  of  the  Louisiana  lands,  is  seven  hundred 
pounds  per  ac*re  of  seed  cotton. 

This  part  of  the  State  has  an  unenviable  reputation  with 
regard  to  health,  but  this  difficulty  may  be  greatly  modi- 
fied, and,  perhaps,  wholly  removed,  when  the  land  is  more 
extensively  cleared,  and  reduced  to  cultivation. 

Although  most  of  the  cotton  of  Louisiana  and  of  Arkan- 
sas grows  in  the  district  bounded  north  by  the  Arkansas, 
and  south  by  the  Red,  including  the  bottom  lands  of  those 
streams,  there  is  quite  a  breadth  of  land  suitable  to  this 
crop  on  the  south  side  of  the  Red.  In  the  parish  imme- 
diately south  of  this  river,  Pointe  Coupee,  which  extends 
from  the  Mississippi  to  the  Atchafalaya,  the  soil,  one  of 
great  fertility,  is  about  equally  adapted  to  cotton  or  sugar, 
but  the  former  is  replacing  the  latter  on  a  great  number 
of  farms.  Cotton  is  raised  nearly  down  to  New  Orleans, 
but  the  tendency  is  to  a  rank  growth  of  the  plant,  and 
late  development  of  the  bolls. 

From  the  result  of  some  experiments  made  a  few  years 
ago  on  the  Houmas  lands,  and  communicated  to  the  author 
by  their  former  owner,  Hon,  John  S.  Preston,  of  South 


COTTOX   CULTURE.  75 

Carolina,  there  is  reason  to  suppose  that  a  variety  of  black 
seed  cotton  might  grow  well  on  the  heavy  black  lands  of 
Southern  Louisiana. 

They  have  always  been  considered  as  sugar  soils  only, 
but  Mr.  Preston  planted  a  considerable  breadth  of  land 
near  Donaldsonville  with  "  Main "  cotton  seed,  a  variety 
finer  than  any  green  seed,  but  not  equal  to  the  genuine 
Sea  Island.  He  found  that  in  proportion  as  he  receded 
from  the  river  bank  the  plant  flourished.  The  plants  near 
the  front  were  feeble,  but  in  the  rows  that  extended  back 
nearly  to  the  timber,  a  distance  of  from  two  to  three 
miles,  they  grew  better  and  better  as  the  distance  from 
the  front  increased. 

The  difference  may  be  owing  to  greater  freshness  or 
more  moisture  in  the  laud.  If  the  sugar  interests  of 
Louisiana  decline,  as  the  prospect  now  is,  it  may  prove  a 
matter  of  great  importance  to  know  that  black  seed  cot- 
ton will  grow  well  on  those  strong  lands.  Some  experi- 
ments are  being  made  this  year,  (1867,)  on  these  and  sim- 
ilar soils  in  Texas  with  black  seed  cotton  from  Egypt,  with 
what  result  remains  as  yet  to  be  seen. 

North  of  the  Arkansas  River,  there  is  a  territory  re- 
sembling in  its  general  features  the  cotton  fields  of  Louis- 
iana. It  is  drained  by  the  White,  the  Saint  Francis,  and 
the  Big  Black,  and  produces  several  thousand  bales  of  cot- 
ton, but  is  not  likely  to  become  remarkable  for  its  growth 
of  this  staple. 

MISSISSIPPI. 

Coming  now  to  that  half  of  the  cotton  belt  which  lies 
east  of  the  Mississippi  River,  we  have  the  great  cotton  pro- 
ducing State,  which  takes  its  name  from  the  river  that 
constitutes  its  western  boundary.  And  here,  immediately 
east  of  the  river,  and  north  of  Vicksburg,  we  find  a  terri- 
tory whose  general  shape  is  that  of  an  ellipse,  Vicksburg 
being  at  the  lower  extremity,  and  Memphis  at  the  upper, 


76  COTTON    CULTURE. 

which  is  wholly  alluvial,  intersected  by  numerous  streams, 
and  of  enormous  productive  power. 

The  Yazoo  is  its  eastern  limit,  and  Deer  Creek,  Yala- 
busha,  and  its  tributaries,  the  Sunflower,  Coldwater,  and 
Tallahatchie  Rivers,  permeate  it  in  various  directions. 
About  two  hundred  miles  in  length,  with  an  average  width 
of  twenty-five  miles,  it  comprises  over  three  million  acres 
of  soil,  which  is  literally  exhaustless,  and  situated  in  the 
very  centre  of  the  cotton  belt. 

The  crop  is  more  certain  here  than  in  any  other  part  of 
the  Mississippi  Valley.  It  is,  however,  like  the  correspond- 
ing section  in  Louisiana  and  Arkansas,  west  of  the  river, 
subject  to  overflow,  but  does  not  require  protection  by 
such  enormous  and  extensive  levees  as  those  which  guard 
the  lands  on  the  west  side  of  the  river. 

Leaving  now  this  great  alluvion,  we  come  to  a  different 
class  of  cotton  lands  from  any  on  the  west  side  of  the  great 
river.  The  hills  or  uplands  of  this  State  are  of  far  greater 
breadth  than  the  submerged  or  alluvial  lands,  and  some 
parts  of  the  State  are  covered  with  almost  unbroken 
forests  of  the  southern  pine.  This  is  true  of  the  fifteen 
counties  that  lie  in  the  south-east  corner.  Placing  these 
out  of  the  account,  there  remains  a  range  of  counties  ex- 
tending diagonally  across  the  State  from  Woodville  to 
Holly  Springs,  in  all  of  which  cotton  is  grown  in  large 
quantities. 

These  uplands  are,  in  their  natural  state,  covered  with 
a  growth  of  white  oak,  red  oak,  beech,  poplar,  magnolia, 
with  pine  interspersed.  The  soil  is  very  soft  and  friable, 
so  that  the  surface,  unless  plowed  with  care,  is  soon  ruined 
and  cut  to  pieces  by  the  washing  of  the  winter  rains. 

When  properly  cared  for,  however,  they  deteriorate 
very  slowly  in  cotton  culture,  many  of  them  being  now 
fully  as  valuable  as  they  were  from  thirty  to  fifty  years 
ago,  when  they  were  first  opened.  The  average  crop  of 
this  class  of  lands  in  Mississippi  is  about  half  a  bale  of 


COTTON  CULTURE.  77 

ginned  cotton  to  the  acre.  The  average  product  per  acre 
throughout  the  State,  according  to  the  census  of  1850,  is 
six  hundred  and  fifty  pounds. 

Along  the  north-eastern  limit  of  the  State  are  lands 
which  drain  into  the  Tombigbee.  This  is  an  excellent 
cotton  country,  the  climate  being  exactly  suited  to  the 
plant,  and  the  soil  remarkably  soft  and  light. 

ALABAMA. 

This  State  and  Mississippi  are  remarkably  similar  in 
situation,  and  in  the  amount  and  quality  of  cotton  which 
they  produce.  Both  extend  to  the  Gulf  on  the  south ; 
both  are  bounded  on  the  north  by  Tennessee ;  both  have-  a 
large  extent  of  poor  land  occupying  the  south  eastern  angle 
of  their  territory.  The  north-eastern  part  of  Alabama  is 
rough  and  unproductive,  except  in  a  few  valleys  of  limited 
extent,  but  on  the  northern  border  is  the  most  southern 
curve  of  the  Tennessee  River,  whose  valley  affords  much 
good,  though  not  first-class,  cotton  land. 

As  in  Louisiana,  the  rich  cotton  lands  of  Alabama  are 
confined  to  an  angle  of  the  State.  The  bottoms  of  the 
Tombigbee  and  Alabama,  and  the  irregularly  shaped  tri- 
angle that  lies  between  the  lower  parts  of  these  streams, 
send  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  cotton  of  Alabama  to 
market.  With  the  exception  of  the  limited  region  around 
Huntsville  and  Tuscumbia,  in  the  northern  part,  there  is 
not  a  great  deal  grown  north  of  the  thirty-third  degree  of 
north  latitude,  or  the  line  which,  continued  west,  divides 
Louisiana  from  Arkansas.  The  tenth  degree  west  of 
Washington,  which  corresponds  nearly  with  a  line  con- 
necting Decatur  and  Pensacola,  divides  the  State  about 
equally,  east  and  west.  The  south-western  quarter  of  Ala- 
bama as  thus  bisected  in  each  direction,  is  equalled  only 
by  the  rich  black  prairies  of  Texas  as  cotton  soil. 

The  alluvions  of  the  rivers  are,  of  course  very  rich  and 


78  COTTON   CULTURE. 

strong.  In  some  cases  they  are  subject  to  overflow,  and 
in  others  the  drainage  is  defective,  especially  on  the  Tom- 
bigbee. 

But  near  the  centre  of  the  State  is  a  tract  of  land  extend- 
ing about  forty  miles  in  each  direction,  giving  something 
like  sixteen  hundred  square  miles,  or  more  than  a  million 
acres,  which,  all  things  considered,  is  the  best  cotton  land 
in  America,  and  probably  in  the  world.  From  a  large 
county  of  that  name  these  are  frequently  called  the  Marengo 
lands. 

The  soil  is  deep,  rich,  and  black,  covered,  in  its  natural 
state,  with  a  dense  growth  of  cane,  rolling  so  as  to  give 
sufficient  drainage,  yet  never  steep  enough  to  wash.  Every 
square  foot  is  capable  of  culture.  The  Tombigbee  on  the 
west,  and  the.  Alabama  on  the  south-east,  both  navigable 
the  greater  part  of  the  year,  give  prompt  and  cheap  access 
to  Mobile,  the  export  town.  Entirely  above  overflow,  and 
remote  from  lakes  and  marshes,  it  is  a  much  healthier  re- 
gion than  the  cotton  fields  of  the  lower  Mississippi.  The 
most  of  this  favored  section  lies  between  the  thirty-second 
and  thirty-third  degrees  of  latitude,  the  very  centre  of 
the  cotton  belt,  where  the  length  of  the  season  is  exact- 
ly adapted  to  cotton.  More  of  these  cane  lands  of  Ala- 
bama, in  proportion  to  the  whole  area,  are  in  cultivation 
than  is  the  case  with  the  other  cotton  fields  on  the  Missis- 
sippi and  west  of  it,  which  have  been  described.  They 
produce  always  a  bale,  and,  in  the  best  seasons,  a  bale  and 
a  half  to  the  acre.  The  rains  of  winter  convert  the  roads 
into  quagmires,  but  in  summer  they  become  hard  and 
glossy,  as  firm  as  a  floor,  and  entirely  free  from  dust. 

The  productive  capacity  of  this  part  of  Alabama  alone 
cannot  be  much  less  than  three-fourths  of  the  whole  num- 
ber of  acres,  for,  allowing  two  acres  in  cotton  for  one  in 
corn,  these  cane  lands  would  yield  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  bales.  . 

The  bottoms  of  the  Alabama,  near  Montgomery  and 


COTTON   CULTURE.  79 

Wetumpka,  are  wide  and  very  productive,  but  farther 
north,  the  good  cotton  lands  decrease  in  amount,  there 
being  in  this  part  of  the  State  many  pine  and  black  oak 
barrens,  where  half  a  bale  per  acre  is  a  good  yield ;  but 
the  valley  of  the  Coosa  is  good  land,  as  far  up  as  Rome,  in 
Georgia. 

GEORGIA. 

This  State  is  naturally  divided  into  three  parts  or  sec- 
tions; southern  Georgia,  middle,  and  northern  Georgia, 
or  the  Cherokee  lands,  as  they  are  familiarly  called.  A 
line  drawn  westward  from  Charleston  or  from  Beaufort 
separates  the  most  of  the  flat  pine  barrens  from  the  better 
parts  of  the  State,  which  lie  north  of  such  a  line.  The 
Cherokee  lands  may  be  described,  in  a  general  way,  as 
that  part  of  the  State  lying  north  of  the  thirty-fourth  par- 
allel, or  an  east  and  west  line  passing  through  Marietta. 

These  northern  lands,  being  situated  among  the  spurs 
and  foot-hills  of  the  Alleghanies,  are  high  and  rough,  well 
adapted  to  grazing,  corn,  and  wheat,  and  but  ill  suited  to 
the  production  of  the  great  southern  staple,  which  flour- 
ishes best  on  lands  that  are  unsuitable  for  wheat. 

The  climate  of  southern  Georgia  is,  of  course,  well 
adapted  to  cotton,  but  the  difficulty  is  with  the  soil.  In 
the  valleys  of  the  Chattahoochie,  the  Flint,  and  on  the 
waters  of  the  Altamaha,  there  are  many  rich  bottoms,  but 
rice  is  found  to  be  a  more  profitable  crop  on  many  of  these 
lands.  The  region  about  Columbus,  however,  is  a  good 
cotton  soil,  and  a  large  amount  is  raised  in  that  part  of  the 
State.  The  good  and  the  poor  lands  of  Georgia  are  more 
mixed  than  in  any  of  the  south-western  or  new  States^but 
in  a  general  way,  the  middle  counties  of  Georgia  are  the 
cotton  counties.  The  natural  growth  on  these  lands  is 
white  and  red  oak,  chestnut,  hickory,  poplar,  sycamore  on 
the  water  courses,  with  pine  on  the  poorer  lands,  and  black 
jacks  on  the  barren  hills. 


80  COTTON   CULTURE. 

Many  of  these  lands  are  of  a  very  red  color,  and  wash 
quite  easily.  As  they  have  been  many  years  in  cultiva- 
tion, and  much  abused,  particularly  in  the  mode  of  plow- 
ing, they  are  not  at  present  remarkably  productive.  The 
average  yield  is  something  like  two-thirds  of  a  bale  to  the 
acre.  Cotton  planting  in  Georgia  has  never  been  con- 
ducted with  the  same  exclusive  devotion  to  the  growing 
of  a  single  staple,  as  characterizes  planting  in  the  south- 
west. 

The  farmer  in  Georgia  is  in  the  habit  of  raising  wheat, 
oats,  potatoes,  and  sometimes  tobacco  and  hemp,  cotton 
being  only  one  of  his  crops.  There  is  not  a  great  deal  of 
undeveloped  cotton  land  in  Georgia.  A  careful  system  of 
plowing,  with  proper  rotation,  may  keep  the  annual  pro- 
duction of  this  staple  from  falling  off. 

SOUTH    CAROLINA. 

The  surface  of  this  State,  like  that  of  North  Carolina, 
its  northern  boundary,  and  Georgia,  its  western,  is  divided 
into  three  parts  or  species  of  land,  the  low  lands,  the 
middle  counties,  and  the  mountains.  The  coast,  for  some- 
thing more  than  a  hundred  miles  back  from  the  water  line, 
including  the  counties  of  Beaufort,  Colleton,  Charleston, 
Georgetown,  Horry,  Marion,  Williamsburg,  a  part  of 
Orangeburg  and  Barnwell,  is  low,  swampy,  fertile,  and 
sickly.  On  the  bottoms  of  the  Edisto,  the  Santee,  the 
Great  and  Little  Pedee,  and  Lynch's  Creek,  rice  is  the 
principal  crop.  The  lower  corner  of  the  irregular  triangle 
which  forms  the  State  of  South  Carolina,  or,  in  other  words, 
that  part  of  the  State  which  lies  south  of  the  line  connect- 
ing Augusta  and  Georgetown,  affords  in  many  places  a 
soil  and  climate  admirably  adapted  to  the  black  seed  or 
Sea  Island  cotton. 

Edisto  Island,  south  of  Charleston,  is  the  best  locality 
in  the  United  States  for  this  variety  of  cotton.  It  is  pro- 
duced as  far  up  the  Savannah  River  as  Barnwell  district. 


COTTON   CULTURE.  81 

The  region  lying  directly  north  of  Barnwell  and  Charles- 
ton, that  is,  the  counties  of  Kershaw,  Sumter,  Darlington, 
Chesterfield,  Fairfield,  Edgefield,  and  two  or  three  others 
still  farther  towards  the  mountains,  is  admirably  adapted, 
as  respects  climate,  to  the  production  of  the  ordinary  green 
seed  staple,  but  only  small  portions  of  the  surface  present 
a  superior  soil. 

Like  the  corresponding  cotton  counties  of  Georgia,  these 
South  Carolina  lands  are  by  no  means  uniform  in  their 
appearance  or  value.  The  bottoms  of  the  Savannah,  Salu- 
da,  Congaree,  Water ee,  Catawba,  and  Lynch's  Creek  are, 
like  all  other  alluvions,  remarkably  fertile  and  productive. 
But  between  these  streams  there  are  extensive  tracts  on 
which  hardly  anything  grows  but  the  southern  pine,  and 
in  those  counties  adjacent  to  Georgia  there  is  much  red 
land,  as  it  is  called,  which  originally  was  of  fine  produc- 
tive power,  but  by  injudicious  cropping,  and  by  washing, 
to  which  the  soil  is  very  liable,  its  value  has-  greatly  de- 
teriorated. Much  of  this  region  has  been  in  cultivation 
for  nearly  a  hundred  years,  but  the  bottom  lands  still  yield 
a  bale  to  the  acre,  and  the  average  throughout  the  State, 
in  a  favorable  season,  is  three  hundred  and  twenty  pounds. 
In  the  upper  counties,  near  the  Blue  Ridge,  neither  the 
soil  nor  climate  is  well  adapted  to  cotton,  this  region  being 
devoted  principally  to  grain  growing  and  stock  raising. 

Notwithstanding  the  length  of  time  for  which  the  State 
lias  been  settled,  there  remains  a  very  considerable  breadth 
of  undeveloped  laud,  capable  of  producing  three  hundred 
pounds  and  over  per  acre. 

XOETH    CAROLINA   AND   TENNESSEE. 

There  is  but  a  moderate  extent  of  land  in  either  of  these 
States  adapted  to  cotton.  The  river  bottoms  above  Wil- 
mington, and  some  of  the  midland  counties  of  North  Caro- 
lina, produce  quite  well.  But  in  those  parts  where  the 
climate  suits  cotton,  the  soil  is  too  poor  to  pay  for  cultiva- 
4* 


82  COTTON    CULTURE. 

tion.  The  average  throughout  the  State  is  about  two 
hundred  pounds  per  acre,  but  there  is  very  little  to  attract 
or  retain  planting  enterprise  on  these  lands,  when  such  re- 
gions as  are  above  described  lie  open  and  inviting  in  the 
Southwest. 

Passing  west  of  the  mountains,  one  descends  the  west- 
ern slope  of  the  Cumberland  range,  and  approaches  to 
within  thirty  miles  of  Nashville  before  a  cotton  soil  is 
reached.  Near  the  Alabama  line,  the  climate  and  soil  are 
both  quite  favorable,  and  west  of  the  Tennessee,  near 
Memphis,  and  around  Jackson  and  Paris,  it  is  the  staple 
production.  The  Tennessee  lands  that  yield  over  half  a 
bale  per  acre  are  not  extensive.  In  Middle  Tennessee  one 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds  per  acre  is  fair  cropping ;  but  the 
bottoms  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  Tennessee  have  not 
been  found  sufficiently  fertile  to  bring  the  general  average 
of  the  State  up  to  three  hundred  pounds,  less  than  half 
of  the  average  Texas  crop. 

COTTOX  ISTOETH  OF  38°. 

The  successful  cultivation  of  cotton  depends  on  the 
length  of  the  season  more  than  any  one  thing.  It  requires 
four  months  from  planting  to  the  opening  of  the  ground 
bolls.  Then,  in  order  to  raise  anything  like  a  full  crop, 
two  and  a  half  or  three  months  more  are  needed  for  pick- 
ing it  out.  In  the  best  part  of  the  cotton  belt  the  chief 
dates  in  the  calendar  are  as  follows  : 

Planting,  about  the  first  of  April. 

First  bloom,  early  in  June. 

First  open  boll,  early  in  August. 

Picking  commenced,  middle  of  August. 

First  killing  frost,  first  to  middle  of  November. 

Crop  gathered,  middle. of  December. 

The  effects  of  shortening  the  season,  as  thus  allotted, 
are,  in  the  first  place,  to  give  less  time  for  maturing  cotton 
before  frost,  and  to  make  the  cotton  which  is  forced  open 


COTTON   CULTURE.  >>. 

by  frost,  not  by  natural  maturity  of  the  boll,  ^&T%iar  in 
staple  as  well  as  diminished  in  bullc     W^4  /    r  J1 

Suppose,  for  instance,  cotton  is  pfeate^d  ori^jfe'/first  of 
May,  in  a  climate  where  corn  is  plantedafttrat^hat  t^P 
It  has  May,  June,  July,  and  August  to  grow  in. 

If  the  heat  of  those  months  is  as  great  as  in 
for  instance,  the  plant  will  begin  to  open  in  September, 
and  there  may  be  two  weeks  or  more  when  fifty  pounds 
per  day  will  be  picked  by  each  hand.  But  weather  cool 
enough  to  stop  the  growing  of  the  plant,  must  come  in 
October,  and,  perhaps,  not  later  than  the  middle  of  that 
month,  a  frost  which  will  force  open  the  immature  bolls. 
Then  follows  a  second  picking  of  short,  kinky  cotton, 
clinging  to  the  inner  surface  of  the  pods. 

When  cotton  is  from  thirty  to  fifty  cents  a  pound,  this 
may  pay.  Two  hundred  pounds  per  acre  may  be  pro- 
duced in  this  way.  At  thirty  cents  per  pound,  this  would 
give  sixty  dollars  as  the  income  from  one  acre.  Of  wheat, 
at  t\vo  dollars,  it  would  require  thirty  bushels ;  of  corn,  at 
fifty  cents,  one  hundred  and  twenty  bushels,  to  give  the 
same  result. 

The  above  supposition  is  the  most  favorable  that  can 
be  expected  north  of  38°.  In  the  spring  of  1862,  cotton 
seed  was  planted  quite  extensively  in  Maryland,  Delaware, 
and  in  Southern  Illinois.  The  fate  of  a  large  majority  of 
these  experiments  may  be  summed  up  as  follows:  the 
plant  grew  well  and  looked  green,  but  developed  little 
or  no  cotton  till  frost,  when  quite  a  number  of  pods  that 
were  nearly  mature  opened,  and  with  cotton  at  fifty  cents 
a  pound  and  over,  the  result  was  moderately  remunerative. 

In  Delaware,  where  the  sea  air  imparts  greater  mildness 
to  the  climate,  quite  good  cotton  is  raised  by  forcing  the 
young  plants  in  a  rich  bed  on  a  sunny  exposure,  and  trans- 
planting after  the  manner  of  tobacco.  The  southern  ex- 
tremity of  Illinois  is  less  than  fifty  miles  from  Tennessee, 
where  half  a  bale  to  the  acre  is  produced,  and  in  parts  of 


COTTON    CULTURE. 


Missouri,  north  of  38°,  nearly  as  much  has  been  grown  in 
a  fortunate  season. 


CHAPTER    II. 

ENEMIES  AND  DISEASES  OF  COTTON. 

There  are  five  small  animals  or  insects  that  afflict,  and 
sometimes  wholly  destroy,  the  cotton  plant.  These  are 
the  cotton  louse,  the  cut  worm,  the  cotton  worm  or  moth, 
(for  the  worm  is  the  offspring  of  the  moth,)  the  army 


Fig.  14. — THE   COTTON  LOUSE. 

DESCRIPTION  :   a,  young  shoot  of  cotton  plant,  with  lice  of  natural  size ;  &, 
winged  lice,  magnified  ;  c,  wingless  lice,  magnified. 

worm,  and  the  boll  worm.  We  are  indebted  to  Prof. 
Townend  Glover,  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture  at 
Washington,  for  the  opportunity  to  copy  from  his  original 


COTTON   CULTURE.  85 

engravings  the  insects  of  which  cuts  are  given  in  this 
chapter. 

Of  the  first,  little,  perhaps,  need  be  said.  It  is  a  small, 
gray  louse,  that  attacks  the  plant  when  very  young,  and 
is  generally  found  upon  cotton  that  is  unfavorably  situated 
with  regard  to  soil  and  moisture. 

Where  there  is  a  rich  but  wet  bottom  from  which  fine 
returns  may  be  expected,  and  copious  rains  follow  the 
planting,  the  young  sprouts  will  have  a  sickly  and  rusted 
look,  and  grow  very  slowly.  Upon  examination  they  will 
be  found  to  be  suffering  from  the  louse. 

The  first  remedy,  and  that  which  is  generally  effectual,  is 
careful  culture.  The  earth  should  be  loosened  around  the 
young  plants,  and,  if  the  stand  is  very  thick,  it  should  be 
thinned.  In  many  places  these  early  troubles  of  the  cot- 
ton plant  result  from  an  exhaustion  of  some  of  the  constit- 
uents of  the  soil  which  cotton  demands. 

Ashes  and  plaster  are  the  best  fertilizers  of  young  cot- 
ton, and  they  would  probably,  if  sprinkled  dry  upon  the 
plant,  destroy  this  little  vermin.  It  is  recommended,  then, 
to  dash  or  dust  upon  young  cotton  plants  that  are  afflicted 
with  the  louse  or  the  sore-shin,  a  mixture  of  dry  wood 
ashes  and  plaster  of  Paris.  Let  it  be  done  immediately 
after  the  first  plowing,  and  before  the  hoes  go  over  the 
crop,  as  this  will  give  the  hoe  an  opportunity  to  mingle 
the  fertilizer  with  the  soil  around  the  roots  of  the  plant. 

THE    CUT-WORM. 

This  animal  is  about  an  inch  long,  of  a  dull,  leaden  hue. 
He  burrows  in  the  earth,  is  of  a  slow  and  torpid  nature, 
and  proves  himself  the  enemy  of  the  cotton  plant  almost 
as  soon  as  it  appears  above  ground.  From  that  time  for 
a  month  he  shows  his  mischievous  nature  by  biting  the 
tender  stalks  just  where  they  emerge  from  the  ground. 
Generally  he  inflicts  a  severe  wound,  but  quite  often  sev- 


86 


COTTON    CULTURE. 


ers  the  stalk  from  the  root  entirely,  and  is  for  that  reason 
very  appropriately  called  the  -Cut-worm. 

Fortunately,  there  is  a  remedy  for  the  depredations  of 
this  little  reptile,  which  is  easy  of  application,  and  in  most 
cases  a  specific ;  though  where  the  crop  is  large,  there  may 
be  a  practical  difficulty  of  obtaining  a  sufficient  amount. 
Ashes  or  lime,  or  a  combination  of  both  these  fertilizers, 
will  at  once  hasten  the  growth  of  the  plants  that  are  un- 
injured, and  render  the  soil  so  alkaline  as  to  be  quite  dis- 
agreeable to  the  villain- 
ous little  creatures.  If 
they  appear  in  all  parts 
of  the  field,  the  planter 
should  obtain  enough 
wood  ashes  to  mix  with 
an  equal  quantity  of 
lime,  and  thus  make  a 


Fig.    15. — CUT-WORM  AND   CHRYSALIS. 


dressing  for  the  entire 
crop.  Let  a  hand  fol- 
low the  plows,  dashing  the  mixture  near  the  roots.  The 
hoes  should  follow  and  blend  the  fertilizer  with  the  soil  in 
such  a  way  as  to  fit  it  for  ready  absorption,  and  at  the 
same  time  make  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  root  dis- 
tasteful to  the  Cut-worm. 


THE    COTTON    MOTH. 

Sometime  in  August,  when  the  planter,  moving  over  his 
crop,  begins  to  see,  now  and  then,  an  open  boll,  he  may 
notice  here  and  there  a  gray,  harmless  looking  moth  or 
miller,  early  in  the  morning  or  in  the  evening,  flitting 
about,  in  a  careless  way,  over  the  plants.  In  a  few  days 
after,  some  worms  will  make  their  appearance  in  different 
parts  of  the  field,  but  their  ravages  will  be  inconsiderable, 
not  sufficient  to  excite  alarm  except  with  the  experienced 
observer. 


COTTOX   CULTURE.  87 

• 

These  worms  will  disappear  in  a  few  days,  and  the 
sanguine  planter  may  be  feeling  quite  sure  of  an  abundant 
crop.  His  neighbors  may  be  congratulating  him,  and  he 
may  write  a  flushed  letter  to  his  factor  in  the  city ; 

*       *       *       "  and  as  his  crop  puts  forth 
The  tender  leaves  of  hope,  to-morrow  blossoms 
And  bears  its  blushing  honors  thick  upon  it : 
The  third  day  comes  " 

not  a  killing  frost ;  but  a  visitation  that  is  just  as  fatal  to 
the  cotton-field  and  its  crop,  as  though,  in  the  midst  of 
that  glowing  midsummer,  the  thermometer  should  sud- 
denly drop  to  the  freezing  point. 

When  the  cotton  worm  is  fairly  developed  and  begins 
his  ravages  in  earnest,  the  planter  has  nothing  to  do  but 
to  sit  by  and  witness  the  havoc.  Then  his  labors  are  im- 
potent, for  his  enemy  is  unconquerable  from  the  sheer  vast- 
ness  of  his  force.  His  numbers  are  in  millions  and  tens 
of  millions ;  every  plant,  and  almost  every  leaf,  is  swarm- 
ing with  them,  and  in  three  days  he  may  behold  a  magnifi- 
cent field,  embracing  perhaps  a  thousand  acres,  standing 
perfectly  leafless,  with  no  possibility  of  affording  more 
than  an  eighth  or  a  tenth  of  a  crop. 

This  is  an  enemy  that  admits  of  no  delay ;  he  must  be 
met  at  the  outset,  and  fought  in  every  way  by  which 
there  is  any  likelihood  of  conquering  him.  Those 
fe\v  harmless  looking  millers  were  the  mothers  of  the  first 
crop  of  worms.  They  produced  a  large  generation  of 
millers,  who,  in  time,  became  the  parents  of  that  enormous 
host  of  devourers. 

Let  us  describe  this  harmless  looking  fly  a  little  more 
fully,  so  that  the  planter,  to  whom  she  is  fortunately  not 
familiar,  may  recognize  her  and  give  her  a  proper  reception. 
An  intelligent  planter,  who  lives  just  above  Port  Hudson, 
in  a  region  that  has  suffered  very  much  from  the  ravages 
of  this  worm,  has  given  the  following  description,  which 
will  enable  the  inexperienced  to  become  duly  warned. 


88 


COTTON   CULTURE. 


"  The  cotton  fly  belongs  to  that  numerous  class  of  in- 
sects known  to  naturalists  under  the  terra  of  phalena,  or 
moth  tribe.  The  following  are  its  specific  characters,  de- 
scribed without  technicalities.  The  little  horns  projecting 
from  the  head,  terminating  in  a  small  point  like  a  bristle, 
are  of  a  drab  color,  half  an  inch  long,  and  about  half  the 
length  of  the  body,  which  measures  nearly  an  inch ;  the 
under  surface  of  the  breast  is  of  a  dull  silvery  white,  gradu- 


g.  16.  —  THE  COTTON  MOTH  AND  CATERPILLAR. 


DESCRIPTION  :   a,  young  caterpillar  after  moulting  its  skin  once  ;  5,  full  grown 
caterpillar  ;  c,  moth  in  motion  ;  £?,  moth  at  rest. 

ally  terminating  on  the  belly  and  wings  in  a  color  tending 
to  russet.  The  upper  surface  of  the  wings  and  back  varies 
somewhat  in  different  individuals,  but  is  generally  of  a 
changeable  golden  color,  with  rusty,  zigzag  lines;  the 
tips  of  the  wings  are  bordered  with  a  narrow  strip  of  pale 
pink  color,  and  slightly  notched.  On  the  upper  surface 
of  the  wings  there  are  two  black  spots,  one  on  each, 
about  the  middle  of  the  widest  part,  or  that  towards  the 
tail.  The  legs  are  white,  the  four  posteriors  very  long 


COTTON   CULTURE.  89 

when  compared  with  the  front  ones,  which  are  short  and 
slender;  the  tail  is  simple,  that  is,  undivided.  The 
length  of  this  insect  is  about  an  inch  from  head  to  tail,  and 
the  wings,  when  expanded,  are  of  about  the  same  width. 
To  conclude,  I  will  add,  that  the  shape  of  this  moth  is 
very  much  that  of  an  isosceles  triangle,  with  the  line 
forming  the  base  bent  in  about  a  quarter  of  an  inch. 
This  peculiar  figure  is  produced  by  the  outer  angle  of  the 
upper  wings  projecting  beyond  the  inner  angle." 

There  are  two  general  modes  of  attack ;  one  is  to  make 
war  upon  the  moth  itself  and  destroy  as  many  as  possible 
before  they  lay  their  eggs,  about  the  last  act  of  their  lives, 
which  extend  through  ten  days.  The  other  is  to  hunt  out 
their  little  nests  on  the  cotton  leaves  and  destroy  then!. 
Though  depending  for  its  existence  entirely  upon  cotton, 
which  is  a  tropical  plant,  this  fly  and  the  worm  which  is 
produced  from  it,  does  not  seem  to  enjoy  the  hot  sun.  The 
worms  sometimes  perish  in  passing  from  one  plant  to  an- 
other if  the  sun  falls  full  upon  them,  and  the  moth  is  most 
likely  to  be  found  in  the  morning  and  the  evening. 

Let  the  laborers  go  out  very  early,  and  start  into  the 
field  in  a  line  between  the  rows,  each  armed  with  a  wide 
shingle  cut  away  into  a  handle  at  one  end.  As  they  move 
forward,  the  moth  rises  from  the  leaves,  and  can  be  struck 
down  and  killed  with  the  paddle. 

Another  method  is  to  mix  molasses,  vinegar  and  cobalt 
in  such  proportions  as  to  make  a  sticky  mass.  Expose  it 
in  plates,  each  set  on  a  board,  which  is  nailed  to  the  top 
of  a  stake.  Some  planters  recommend  that  they  be  used 
as  thickly  as  a  plate  to  an  acre.  The  moths  are  attracted 
to  these  plates,  and  falling  in,  become  fastened  and  perish. 
Fires  in  the  fields  have  been  recommended  as  attracting 
and  destroying  this  moth;  white  cotton  flags,  about  a 
yard  square,  are  also  said  to  allure  the  insect,  and  serve  as 
deposits  for  their  eggs. 

It  will  not  do  to  rely  upon  either  of  these  modes,  as 


90  COTTOX    CULTURE. 

some  will  escape  the  paddle  and  fail  to  get  into  the  molas- 
ses. Fortunately  the  places  where  the  mischievous  crea- 
tures lay  their  eggs,  are  easily  found.  She  cuts  the  mid-rib 
or  main  fibre  of  a  leaf  and  bends  it  over,  tying  it  down 
with  a  little  thread,  and  beneath  this  shelter  tent  deposits 
the  tiny  atoms  that,  in  ten  days,  become  worms.  They 
are  protected  also  by  a  few  threads  laid  over  them.  The 
cutting  of  the  fibre  and  bending  over  of  the  leaf  is  a  sure 
sign  that  immense  mischief  is  hatching,  and  if  in  walking 
through  a  number  of  rows  many  such  leaves  are  visible, 
the  planter  should  start  in  his  whole  force  with  cotton 
bags,  instructing  them  to  hunt  for  all  such  leaves,  pick 
them,  bring  them  all  out,  and  burn  them. 
*  It  is  impossible  to  predict  when  and  where  this  pest 
will  appear,  or  whence  it  comes.  It  was  not  much  known, 
at  least  in  the  Southwest,  before  1820.  Since  then  it  has 
made  irregular  but  quite  too  frequent  visits,  sometimes  de- 
stroying thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  acres.  The 
worm  grows  very  rapidly,  is  of  a  brown  color  with  dark 
stripes,  about  an  inch  long,  and  looks  some  like  the  apple 
tree  worm  that  infests  orchards. 

It  generally  occurs  that  a  few  appear  and  pass  away 
some  time  in  August,  and  then,  if  nothing  is  done,  the  at- 
tack in  mass  comes  early  in  September.  Where  there  is  a 
large  crop  to  be  saved,  it  would  be  advisable  to  take  those 
few  pla'nts  upon  which  worms  first  appear  and  entirely  de- 
stroy them.  By  this  mode,  the  second  generation  of  mil- 
lers would  be  considerably  reduced  in  number,  if  not 
quite  exterminated. 

There  is  something  remarkable  in  the  way  in  which  one 
of  these  countless  generations  provides  its  own  destruc- 
tion without  leaving  even  a  representative. 

The  first  moths  that  visit  a  crop  deposit  their  eggs  and 
die.  These  eggs,  in  ten  days,  become  little  worms,  which 
fall  to  eating  the  leaf  on  which  they  were  hatched,  and  as 
they  grow,  consume  the  plant  and  pass  to  another. 


COTTON   CULTURE.  91 

But  age  comes  on  apace  with  these  ephemeral  creatures ; 
the  worm  presently  grows  weary  of  devouring,  selects  a 
leaf,  rolls  himself  in  a  little  cocoon,  and  dies.  From  each 
of  the  cocoons,  in  a  few  days,  a  moth  emerges,  and  these 
deposit  the  eggs  from  which  the  devouring  host  is  hatch- 
ed. But  their  numbers  and  their  voracity  now  become 
fatal  to  themselves  as  well  as  to  the  crop  on  which  they 
feed.  They  consume  the  last  leaf  on  the  last  plant  of  a 
field,  leaving  no  place  upon  which  their  cocoons  can  be 
deposited.  If,  by  accident,  a  few  moths  should  be  repro- 
duced, they  would  find  no  pasturage  for  the  young  to  be 
hatched  from  their  eggs,  for  the  creature  can  eat  nothing 
but  cotton.  When  the  growth  of  a  field  is  consumed, 
they  start  away  feebly  for  another  range,  but  the  first 
fence  or  ditch  arrests  them.  The  sun  kills  them,  the  birds 
pick  them  up,  the  wheels  of  a  wagon,  passing  along  a 
plantation  road,  crush  millions  of  them ;  so  that  in  two 
days  from  the  time  the  crop  was  devoured,  not  one  of  the 
voracious  army  may  survive.  They  perish  as  utterly  as 
the  hosts  of  Pharoah,  and  the  discomfited  planter  is  re- 
minded of 

"  The  sojourners  of  Goshen,  who  "beheld 
From  the  safe  shore,  their  floating  carcasses 
And  broken  chariot- wheels." 

Those  who  have  studied  the  habits  and  peculiarities  of 
this  insect,  have  arrived  at  the  following  conclusions : 

1st. — That  nature  has  made  no  provision  by  which  either 
the  fly,  the  worm,  the  chrysalis,  or  the  eggs,  can  survive 
the  winter  or  exist  for  any  length  of  time  where  the  cotton 
plant  is  not  a  perennial. 

3d. — There  is  no  regularity  in  their  advent,  no  law  that 
seems  to  prescribe  the  times  of  their  re-appearing. 

3d. — Their  progress  is  from  north  to  soutli)  and  from 
west  to  east.  That  is,  in  the  United  States,  the  cotton  of 
Louisiana  and  Texas  is  liable  to  suffer  the  first  attack,  and 
the  fields  of  Arkansas,  Tennessee,  and  the  Carolinns,  will 


92  COTTON    CULTURE. 

be  invaded,  if  at  all,  so  late  in  the  season  that  the  ravages 
of  the  worm  are  only  a  little  before  frost,  and  but  mod- 
erate injury  is  produced. 

4th. — It  probably  originates  in  Mexico  and  South  Amer- 
ica, and  from  some  unknown  cause  occasionally  migrates 
northward. 

THE    ARMY    WORM. 

Without  pausing  now  to  speculate  or  sum  up  the  ob- 
servations on  the  origin  of  this  devourer,  it  will  suffice  to 


Fig.    17.— THE  ARMY-WORM  AND  MOTH. 

DESCRIPTION  :  a,  the  caterpillar,  or  army-worm ;  £,  cocoon  formed  of  particles 
of  earth  cemented  together  with  silk  or  gum  ;  found  under  stones  or  in  the  earth  ; 
c,  chrysalis  ;  c?,  moth.  The  moths  vary  very  much  in  color  and  markings. 

remark  that  he  differs  both  in  appearance  and  habits  from 
the  cotton  worm  or  caterpillar  described  on  the  foregoing 
pages.  Of  voracity  equal  to  that  of  the  cotton  worm,  he 
is  a  general  consumer  of  every  green  crop  in  the  line  of 


COTTON   CULTURE.  93 

his  march.  He  is  much  longer  lived  than  the  caterpillar, 
and  can  travel  much  faster,  overcoming  greater  obstacles 
in  his  path.  He  resembles  the  cotton  worm  in  coming 
from  the  South  northward,  and  in  the  countless  myriads 
with  which  he  invades  a  crop. 

The  Army-worm  is  not  so  subtle  or  difficult  an  enemy 
as  the  former.  The  force  advances  by  regular  marches 
from  one  field  to  anottier,  and  does  not  send  out  breeders 
in  the  form  of  a  moth  to  deposit  eggs  throughout  a  field. 
The  planter  may  hear  of  his  advance  from  afar,  and  have 
a  number  of  days  or  weeks  to  prepare  a  suitable  reception 
for  the  enemy. 

The  most  effective  obstacle  that  can  be  interposed  in  the 
path  of  the  Army-worm  is  a  clean  cut  ditch,  of  moderate 
depth,  but  with  smooth,  perpendicular  faces.  As  a  precau- 
tionary measure,  many  planters  cut  such  a  ditch  all  around 
their  place,  or  at  least  on  the  southern  and  western  expo- 
sure. But  the  washing  of  winter  rains  and  the  growth 
of  weeds  and  bushes  will  remove  the  earth  from  the  sides, 
or  bridge  over  the  ditch  so  as  to  make  it  useless  without 
prompt  working.  Whenever  there  is  any  likelihood  that 
a  plantation  lies  in  the  path  of  such  an  army,  let  the  plows 
be  started  on  the  side  of  the  field  in  the  direction  of  the 
enemy,  and  throw  out  a  wide  furrow  from  the  field.  The 
plow  should  go  two  or  three  times  over  the  same  ground, 
and  be  followed  by  hoes  and  spades,  cutting  down  the 
ditch  a  foot  or  eighteen!  inches  deep,  care  being  exercised 
to  make  at  least  the  inner  wall  or  face  quite  perpendicular 
and  smooth.  It  will  sometimes  happen  that  the  southern 
or  western  extremity  of  a  field  is  invaded  before  the 
farmer  or  planter  has  had  sufficient  warning  to  make 
ready  for  them.  In  that  case  let  him  take  a  lesson  of  de- 
cisive fire  engineers,  when  laboring  to  stay  a  conflagration, 
which  is  spreading  before  the  wind  in  a  populous  city. 

With  a  proper  estimate  of  the  rate  of  advance  of  the 
enormous  horde,  let  him  select  a  path,  and  send  a  force  to 


94  COTTON   CULTURE. 

cut  down  and  throw  towards  the  army  two  or  three  rows 
of  cotton.  Then  let  the  plows,  hoes  and  spades,  follow 
rapidly,  and  cut  the  ditch  as  soon  as  possible.  Sometimes 
it  may  be  necessary  to  keep  the  plows  in  constant  motion 
in  order  to  bury  the  advance  guard  and  give  time  to  com- 
plete the  ditch.  _  Another  precaution,  which  many  employ, 
is  to  scatter  straw  or  dry  sedge  grass  in  the  ditch  and  re- 
new it  when  burned,  so  as  to  keep  a  bed  of  hot  cinders, 
or  a  line  of  fire  in  front  of  the  threatened  field.  As  the 
whole  farm  is  in  danger,  as  well  as  the  cotton  field,  the 
Army-worm  devouring  corn,  grass,  gardens,  and  stacks  of 
fodder  that  lie  in  Ms  path,  an  attack  of  this  character  im- 
poses the  most  strenuous  and  constant  activity  on  every 
one  that  can  lift  a  finger  in  the  contest.  A  patrol  with 
the  plow  and  spade,  should  be  kept  up  along  the  line  of 
the  ditch. 

The  Army-worm  hardly  needs  a  formal  description.  No 
other  reptile  moves,  as  he  does,  in  such  enormous  force. 
He  is  of  about  the  length  of  the  little  finger  of  a  man,  and 
nearly  as  thick,  yellowish  in  color,  with  a  single  dark 
stripe  along  the  back.  He  travels  by  bending  up  the  back 
and  drawing  the  last  feet  nearly  up  to  the  head,  then 
throwing  the  head  forward,  thus  measuring  his  length 
from  one  point  to  another. 

There  appears  to  be  no  bird,  but  the  blue  jay,  that  will 
eat  it.  Hens  and  turkeys  look  upon  it  with  curiosity  or 
fear. 

THE     BOLL-WOEM. 

Unlike  the  caterpillar  and  the  Army-worm,  the  Boll- 
worm  is  an  annual  pest  of  the  cotton  plant,  hybernating 
in  the  ground,  and  commencing  depredations  as  soon  as 
the  young  forms  begin  to  swell.  He  never  destroys  a 
crop  as  they  do,  but  pierces  three,  four,  or  sometimes  ten 
bolls,  nearly  or  quite  killing  them,  at  length  penetrat- 


COTTON   CULTURE.  95 

ing  to  the  centre  of  a  full  grown  boll,  where  he  lies  con- 
cealed till  near  the  time  of  his  transformation. 

The  peculiarity  of  this  worm  is  that  his  natural  food 
is  corn,  which  he  always  prefers,  but  will  attack  cotton  if 
the  other  plant  is  not  at  hand.  The  moth  which  pro- 
duces the  worm  is  thus  described  by  a  planter  in  Jackson, 
Mississippi,  who  has  evidently  made  the  subject  a  study. 
"  Of  a  pale  yellow  or  shining  ash  color,  length  of  body 
and  wings  an  inch  and  one  eighth,  the  wings  expanded 
two  inches,  the  upper  covering  the  lower.  Below  the  cen- 
tre and  near  the  border  of  the  upper  wings  are  two  dark 
spots,  with  two  or  three  indistinct  ones  on  each  upper 
wing ;  end  of  the  wing  whitish,  having  a  wavy  dark  band 
near  the  border.  Throat  a  little  convex,  downy ;  abdomen 
color  of  wings  and  downy ;  proboscis  folded  spirally  un- 
derneath, double,  half  an  inch  long;  eyes  large,  clear 
yellowish-green.  Six  legs,  antennae  fusiform;  lies  con- 
cealed in  the  day  in  fence  corners  and  around  stumps, 
flies  only  late  in  the  evening  and  at  night  near  the  ground 
and  rapidly." 

In  the  early  part  of  July  this  moth  pairs,  and  in  four 
days  lays  about  seven  hundred  and  fifty  eggs,  soon  after 
which  it  dies. 

These  eggs  are  deposited  on  the  silks  of  corn.  In  three 
days  they  hatch,  and  the  young  worms  commence  feeding 
on  the  green  corn  and  the  silk.  Remaining  here  about 
two  weeks,  the  worm  then  goes  down  into  the  ground  to 
the  depth  of  three  inches,  where  it  is  transformed  into  a 
chrysalis  of  bright  mahogany  color  and  conical  shape,  and 
about  an  inch  in  length.  In  sixteen  days,  the  moth  above 
described  bursts  from  the  crysalis.  The  moth  of  the  sec- 
ond generation  finds,  at  this  time  of  the  year,  little  or  no 
corn  in  the  silk,  in  the  cotton  latitudes,  and  in  the  ab- 
sence of  its  favorite  plant,  lays  its  eggs  on  the  top  bud  or 
on  the  ends  of  the  side  buds  of  the  cotton  plant. 

At  the  time  of  this  deposit,  if  the  weather  is  dry  and 


96 


COTTON    CULTURE. 


the  sun  very  hot,  most  of  the  eggs  perish  or  become 
abortive.  This  is  the  reason  why  moist  weather  in  Au- 
gust forebodes  an  attack  of  the  Boll-worm.  But  no  sea- 
son is  so  hot  and  dry  but  some  worms  will  be  hatched, 
and  they  commence  to  spread  downward  upon  the  plant 
and  commit  depredations  on  the  boll. 


Fig.  18.— THE   BOLL-WORM   AND   MOTH. 

DESCRIPTION  :  a,  the  young  worm  eating  into  the  young  boll ;  £,  full  grown 
boll  with  hole  eaten  in  the  side,  containing  the  Boll-worm  after  shedding  skin 
the  4th  time  (19th  day),  with  foeces  in  boll ;  c,  moth  in  motion,  and  cf,  at  rest. 

The  Boll-worm  is  thus  accurately  described  by  Mr. 
Boddie,  of  Jackson. 

"  The  larva  or  caterpillar,  when  full  grown,  will  measure 
from  an  inch  and  a  half  to  an  inch  and  three  quarters  in 
length;  it  looks,  to  a  superficial  observer,  brown,  pale 
yellow  and  light  green,  though  it  has  eight  longitudinal 
streaks  of  white,  brown  and  green,  with  one  or  two  dots 
on  each  segment  of  the  body  along  the  lowest  streak.  It 
is  smooth,  shining,  naked,  with  a  few  hairs  on  each  seg- 
ment of  the  body.  It  is  of  a  cylindrical  form,  tapering  a 


COTTON    CULTURE.  97 

little  at  each  end;  rather  thick  in  proportion  to  its  length, 
and  has  six  legs  in  the  fore  part  of  its  body,  eight  at  the 
middle,  and  two  near  the  tail.  The  head  is  brown, 
smaller  than  the  body,  and  oval  in  shape." 

After  thus  destroying  from  one  to  eight  or  ten  bolls, 
the  reptile  descends  and  rolls  himself  into  a  cocoon  or  egg 
in  which  to  get  through  the  coming  winter  and  spring ; 
for  nature  prepares  no  food  for  him  during  nine  months  of 
the  year.  The  eggs  or.  cocoons  that  hybernate,  must  be 
hidden  in  the  neighborhood  where  the  perfect  insect  lived, 
that  is,  in  the  cotton-fields  or  near  them.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  any  are  hidden  in  the  soil  of  the  corn-field  where 
there  is  cotton  anywhere  near ;  for,  after  July,  the  animal  en- 
tirely deserts  corn,  and  goes  to  the  cotton-fields.  This  is  the 
case,  at  least,  in  the  district  where  cotton  flourishes  best, 
for  there  the  corn  nearly  all  hardens  late  in  July  or  early 
in  August.  Thus,  in  the  northern  part  of  the  cotton  belt, 
as  Tennessee  and  North  Carolina,  the  Boll-worm  does  lit- 
tle injury  to  cotton,  for  there  he  can  find  green  corn  till 
quite  late  in  the  season. 

These  preferences  and  habits  of  the  Boll-worm  under- 
stood, it  is  not  so  difficult  to  prescribe  a  course  of  treat- 
ment that  will  rid  the  cotton-fields  of  his  presence. 

There  are  two  modes,  and,  so  far  as  now  known,  but 
two  modes  of  expelling  this  pest ;  one  by  starving  or  kill- 
ing the  moth,  the  other  by  drawing  it  to  corn,  its  natural 
food,  and  keeping  it  there. 

Rotation  of  crops,  managed  so  as  to  place  the  corn  at 
some  distance  from  the  cotton,  and  throwing  out  the  cot- 
ton-field to  lie  fallow  a  year,  will  destroy  almost  all  the 
eggs  of  the  Boll-worm. 

Suppose  that  a  cotton  farm  is  so  far  remote  from  others 
as  to  enable  the  planter  to  interpose  a  mile  of  wood  land 
or  pasturage  between  the  cultivated  fields  of  each.  In 
September,  the  worms  descend  from  the  bolls  and  enter 
the  ground.  Let  the  ground  lie  fallow,  or  be  sowed  wit]] 
5 


98  COTTON   CULTURE. 

oats  the  following  year.  In  August,  when  the  moth 
emerges  from  the  ground,  she  may  find  neither  corn  nor 
cotton  within  a  mile  upon  which  to  deposit  eggs.  Her 
flight  is  low,  and  her  days  are  brief.  The  chances  arc, 
that  she  will  perish  before  reaching  either  of  the  plants 
upon  which  she  and  her  young  feed. 

The  exposure  of  a  mixture  of  molasses  and  cobalt,  with 
a  little  vinegar,  at  the  edge  of  a  cotton  field,  and  nearest 
the  corn  from  which  they  migrate  in  the  latter  part  of 
July  and  first  of  August,  would  probably  attract  and 
poison  large  numbers  of  them.  By  carefully  noting  the 
time  of  their  moving  upon  the  cotton,  it  might  be  effective 
to  send  out  early  in  the  morning  the  whole  force  with  pad- 
dles or  little  hand-nets,  to  walk  abreast  down  the  rows 
next  the  corn,  and  catch  and  kill  them  as  they  fly  up. 
Where  corn  and  cotton  are  adjacent,  the  moth  settles  in 
the  first  rows  of  cotton  as  soon  as  she  leaves  the  other 
plant,  and  by  patroling  these  rows  every  morning,  the 
most  of  the  invaders  might  be  destroyed. 

Another  mode  of  overcoming  the  difficulty,  would  be  to 
provide  other  and  more  attractive  pasturage  for  them 
than  the  cotton  boll.  This  could  be  done  by  having  a 
small  field  of  late  corn  next  the  cotton,  that  would  be  in 
silk  as  late  as  the  latter  part  of  August  or  the  first  of 
September.  The  worm  would  not  be  likely  to  leave  the 
corn  for  the  cotton,  until  it  was  too  late  for  him  to  work 
much  injury. 

The  same  might  perhaps  be  better  attained  by  having 
rows  of  late  corn,  at  intervals  of  twenty  or  thirty  feet, 
through  the  cotton-field.  This  arrangement  would  be  sure 
to  draw  all  the  moths,  late  in  the  season,  .to  that  field. 
Their  cocoons  would  be  buried  in  the  soil,  and  by  turning 
out  that  field  to  rest  for  a  year  or  two,  and  transferring 
the  crops  to  some  distance,  the  race  of  Boll-worms  on  that 
place  might  be  exterminated. 

The  diseases  of  cotton  are  not  generally  as  destructive 


COTTON   CT7LTUKE.  99 

as  its  enemies  from  the  animal  kingdom.  Few  crops  are 
ever  destroyed  by  anything  but  the  caterpillar  or  the  Ar- 
my-worm ;  the  "  sore-shin,"  the  red  and  brown  rust,  the 
dry  rot,  and  the  "  cotton  blues,"  damage  a  crop  in  various 
degrees,  sometimes  ruining  a  part  of  a  field,  or  cutting  off 
a  number  of  bolls  from  each  plant. 

As  these  diseases'are  easily  recognized  when  they  make 
their  appearance,  and  as  little  can  be  done  towards  arrest- 
ing their  progress  when  once  developed  in  a  crop,  the  at- 
tention of  the  planter  should  be  turned  mainly  to  the  best 
means  of  providing  against  their  return. 

"  An  ounce  of  prevention  is  worth  a  pound  of  cure." 

Rust,  on  the  cotton  stalk,  is  a  small  parasitical  fungus 
or  morbid  growth,  like  lichens  on  trees,  that  springs  up 
and  materially  checks  the  advancement  of  the  plant  by 
absorbing  its  juices.  This  fungus  is  produced  by  a  dis- 
eased state  of  the  plant,  which  may  arise  in  various  ways, 
but  principally  from  a  stagnation  in  its  growth  and  in- 
sufficient supply  of  some  of  the  elements  of  vegetable  life. 
This  stagnation  may  be  produced  by  a  singularly  unfavor- 
able season,  but  it  is  more  likely  the  consequence  of  an 
unwise  system  of  cropping  and  bad  husbandry. 

"  Defective  cultivation,"  says  Professor  Harper,  of  the 
University  of  Mississippi,  "  is  the  reason  of  ninety-nine 
cases  of  rust  in  cotton,  while  one  is  owing  to  an  unfavor- 
able season." 

The  "  sore  shin  "  is  an  affection  of  young  cotton  plants, 
very  similar  in  appearance,  and  probably  of  the  same 
origin  as  rust. 

uRot,  or  gangrene,  is  a  decay  that  attacks  the  top 
bolls.  The  seed  and  lint  first  rot  and  turn  black ;  then  a 
sore  or  scab  appears,  resembling  a  puncture  with  a  sharp 
instrument.  This  extends  quite  over  the  surface  of  the 
boll,  and  very  frequently,  after  the  disease  has  taken  pos- 
session of  the  whole  pod,  it  opens  its  prongs  and  repre- 
sents a  thoroughly  rotten  state  in  all  its  parts." 


100  COTTON   CULTURE. 

This  account  of  the  disease  by  an  Alabama  planter  was 
given  with  a  view  of  eliciting  information  on  the  subject. 
No  careful  examination  of  this  affection  has  ever  been 
made,  or  at  least  given  to  the  world,  and  all  that  can  be 
said  by  way  of  suggesting  a  cure  is,  that  proper  cultiva- 
tion, and  an  application  of  just  those  fertilizers  which 
cotton  demands,  will  give  partial,  if  not  entire  relief. 

Sometimes  in  July  and  August,  when  the  cotton  should 
be  maturing  rapidly,  there  will  appear  a  change  in  the 
color  of  some  parts  of  the  field.  Instead  of  a  deep, 
healthy  green,  the  plants  take  on  a  dull  slate  or  leaden 
color ;  the  strength  of  the  soil  seems  to  expend  itself  on 
the  woody  fibre,  not  in  maturing  the  bolls. 

The  planter  calls  this  "  blue  cotton."  At  other  times, 
depending  perhaps  on  a  very  wet  season,  the  plant,  after 
growing  several  feet,  and  bearing  well,  sheds  all  its  fruit 
and  becomes  blue. 

As  the  remedies  for  all  these  diseases  of  the  cotton 
plant  may  be  summed  up  in  one  phrase,  the  improved  and 
scientific  culture  of  cotton,  that  wide  field  of  inquiry  and 
suggestion,  must  be  remitted  to  the  succeeding  chapter. 


CHAPTER      III. 

IMPROVED  AND  SCIENTIFIC  CULTURE  OF  COTTON. 

Though  cotton  is  the  great  American  staple  of  export, 
and  has  been  proclaimed  a  King  in  the  commercial  world, 
no  leading  crop  of  the  country  has  been  so  little  studied 
by  scientific  men,  and  none  has  been  cultivated  with  so  lit- 
tle reference  to  fundamental  principles  of  agricultural 
chemistry.  Three  reasons  may  be  assigned  for  this  some- 
what surprising  fact, 


COTTON   CULTURE.  101 

First. — The  class  of  labor  that  has  hitherto  been  ap- 
plied to  cotton  raising,  was,  in  the  last  degree,  rude  and 
unskilled.  Science  and  judgment  on  the  part  of  a  proprie- 
tor or  agent  is  of  little  avail,  unless  the  hand  that  does 
the  work  is  guided  by  a  thinking  brain. 

Second. — On  account  of  the  opening  of  vast  and  still 
vaster  regions  blessed  with  a  virgin  and  inexhaustible  soil 
in  the  Southwest,  which  could  be  obtained  at  almost  nomi- 
nal prices,  there  was  no  necessity  for  a  system  of  culture 
in  the  older  States  that  should  keep  the  land  in  undimin- 
ished  productiveness.  Why  should  the  cotton  grower  on 
the  old  red  lands  of  the  Carolinas  and  Georgia  labor  to 
redeem  his  acres  from  the  effects  of  past  errors,  fill  the 
deep  gulches,  prevent  washing,  exterminate  the  sedge 
grass  and  the  stunted  pine  and  black  oak  bushes,  and  re- 
store the  potash,  lime  and  phosphorus  drained  from  the 
soil  by  long  cropping  without  fertilizers,  when  a  few  hun- 
dred miles  to  the  Southwest  lay  those  wide  savannahs  and 
broad  alluvial  bottoms,  teeming  with  tropical  luxuriance, 
to  which  the  Government  would  give  him  a  fee  simple  for 
a  dollar  and  a  quarter  an  acre  ? 

Third. — Cotton  is  not  a  rapid  exhauster  of  any  soil. 
Compare  for  amount  of  mineral  and  organic  matter  re- 
moved from  the  soil,  the  potato  crop  with  the  cotton  crop. 
The  stalks  of  cotton  and  of  potatoes  are  alike  returned  to 
the  soil.  An  acre  in  potatoes  yields,  in  tubers,  say  ten 
thousand  pounds  weight,  which  is  wholly  removed.  Three- 
fourths  of  this  is  water,  leaving  twenty-five  hundred 
pounds  dry  and  mineral  matter.  In  cotton,  the  same  acre 
would  yield  a  bale,  or  four  hundred  pounds  of  lint.  The 
weight  of  the  dry  seed  would  be  about  three  times  that 
of  the  lint,  that  is,  twelve  hundred  pounds.  Add  the 
weight  of  the  lint,  and  the  sum  is  sixteen  hundred  pounds. 
Thus,  compared  with  the  potato,  the  removal  is  as  sixteen 
to  twenty-five. 

But  in  the  rudest  agriculture  ever  practiced  on  cotton 


102  COTTON    CULTUEE. 

soils,  the  custom  has  been  to  plant  six,  eight,  or  ten  times 
as  many  seeds  as  were  expected  to  become  plants.  In 
other  words,  of  the  twelve  hundred  pounds  of  seed  taken 
from  an  acre,  a  thousand  pounds  were  returned  to  the  soil 
as  a  fertilizer ;  so  the  real  removal  was  only  six  hundred 
pounds  from  an  acre,  that  is,  as  compared  with  the  pota- 
to, six  to  twenty-five,  or  about  one-fourth. 

The  preservation  and  restoration  of  cotton  lands  de- 
pends on  two  practices,  one  mechanical,  the  other  chemi- 
cal ;  the  former  involving  no  expense  other  than  a  little 
well  directed  labor,  the  latter  the  restoration  of  a  few 
pounds  of  potash,  lime  and  phosphorus,  to  each  acre 
from  which  a  crop  has  been  taken. 

Of  the  two,  probably  the  former  is  as  important  as  the 
latter ;  on  hill  lands  very  much  more  so. 

Under  these  two  heads  the  subject  will  be  considered. 

First. — Circle  plowing  and  ditching. 

Second. — The  nature  and  amount  of  fertilizers  required 
by  cotton. 

Several  circumstances  conspire  to  make  the  deterioration 
of  upland  cotton  soils  by  washing  very  great.  In  the  first 
place,  the  cotton  soils  are  all  soft,  light,  and  porous,  "  as 
mellow  as  an  ash-heap."  In  a  natural  state,  they  are  kept 
in  place  by  the  roots  of  the  trees,. leaves,  and  the  tough 
cane  roots,  and  fallen  canes,  which  are  the  natural  growth 
of  that  climate  and  soil. 

When  all  these  are  removed  by  clearing  and  the  plow, 
what  should  keep  the  mould  from  being  carried  by  the 
washing  of  copious  rains  down  the  sharp  hill-sides,  and 
swept  away  into  the  swollen  streams  ? 

Consider,  also,  that  the  requirements  of  cotton  call  for 
frequent  plowing  and  hoeing ;  so  that  all  weeds  and  grass 
are  destroyed,  and  no  little  roots  remain  to  hold  the  sur- 
face in  a  sod.  The  cotton  root  is  small  and  smooth,  going 
directly  down  into  the  subsoil.  Nor  is  the  surface  of  the 
country  locked  up  from  the  abrasion  of  the  rain,  by  those 


COTTON   CULTURE.  103 

penetrating  frosts  that,  north  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Poto- 
mac, for  four  or  five  months  of  each  year,  keep  every  peb- 
ble in  place,  and  open  the  surface  in  April  in  precisely  the 
same  condition  in  which  it  was  left  in  December. 

It  would  not  seem  to  demand  any  remarkable  inventive 
power  to  accommodate  the  mode  of  plowing  to  the  re- 
quirements of  the  cotton  soil  in  the  United  States ;  but 
nothing  like  circle  plowing  has  been  in  general  practice 
until  within  twenty  years  past. 

The  State  Geologist  of  Mississippi,  in  that  part  of  his 
report  which  relates  to  cotton  culture,  says  the  idea  was 
first  suggested  by  Thomas  Jefferson,  who  had  seen  the 
peasants  of  France  conforming  the  curve  of  their  farrows 
with  the  slope  of  the  hills  on  which  they  were  plowing. 
Mr.  Jefferson  was,  for  many  years,  a  correspondent  of  Sir 
William  Dunbar,  who  had  extensive  plantations  on  the 
steep  but  fertile  hill  lands  that  extend  from  the  Missis- 
sippi River,  near  Natchez,  eastward  to  the  Pine  woods, 
which,  at  the  distance  of  thirty  miles  from  the  river,  cover 
the  greater  part  of  the  country.  Mr.  Dunbar  is  said  to 
have  been  the  first  to  practice  circle  plowing  in  Mississip- 
pi. The  simple  good  sense  of  the  innovation  on  the  old 
and  ruinous  mode,  at  once  recommended  itself,  and  it  be- 
came almost  universal  among  all  enterprizing  and  well  in- 
formed planters  through  the  South.  But  millions  of  acres 
had  been  well  nigh  ruined  and  thrown  out  to  sedge  grass 
and  the  foxes,  before  the  improved  mode  was  brought  into 
practice.  •  In  that  part  of  Mississippi  where  it  was  first 
adopted,  the  plowmen  have  acquired  great  skill  and  a 
practiced  eye,  so  that,  give  a  man  a  good  two-horse  plow, 
and  he  will  engage  to  run  it  in  such,  a  way  that  in  the 
softest  soil,  spread  over  an  irregular  group  of  steep  hills, 
hardly  a  ton  of  mould  shall  be  washed  into  the  bottoms 
during  the  most  rainy  season. 

Probably  the  best  way  to  begin  this  system  is  in  con- 


104  COTTON    CULTURE. 

nection  with  a  series  of  circle  ditches.     These  are  laid  out 
and  made  in  the  following  manner. 

Determine  by  experiments,  or  observe  from  the  charac- 
ter and  extent  of  the  wash  in  a  circular  furrow,  the  fall 
that  must  be  given  a  ditch  in  order  that  the  soil  at  the 
bottom  of  it  may  not  wash  in  gullies  during  a  hard  rain. 
In  many  lands  this  fall  must  not  exceed  an  inch  in  ten 
feet,  or  one  foot  in  a  hundred.  Commence  now  at  the 
foot  of  the  hill,  at  the  point  where  it  is  desirable  to  have 
the  waters  of  the  hill-side  discharged,  and  with  a  survey- 
or's level  ascertain  the  point  which  is  three  hundred  feet 
distant  and  three  feet  higher  than  the  feet  of  the  observer. 
Mark  these  points  by  stakes,  marked  No.  1  and  2,  and 
thus  proceed  from  stake  No.  2  to  stake  No.  3,  until  sev- 
eral hundred  feet  are  laid  off.  The  curves  and  irre^ulari- 

£3 

ties  of  the  hill-side  may  not  permit  you  to  take  observa- 
tions of  three  hundred  feet ;  in  that  case  make  the  obser- 
vations shorter  and  the  stakes  more  numerous,  but  keep- 
ing the  slope  the  same.  Now  run  a  furrow  with  a  double 
plow  from  the  first  stake  to  the  second,  and  so  on  over  all 
the  ground  surveyed.  Throw  off  t\vo  or  three  more  fur- 
rows in  the  same  way,  and  then  let  hands  with  hoes  and 
shovels  haul  all  the  loose  earth  into  one  ridge.  The 
spring  of  the  year  is  the  proper  time  for  doing  this,  after 
the  heaviest  of  the  early  rains.  Then,  when  bedding  up 
for  a  crop,  be  careful  not  to  disturb  these  ridges.  Their 
bottoms  should  be  dressed  off  smooth  and  level,  and  the 
ridge  trodden  quite  firm.  In  working  the  crop,  pay  some 
attention  to  these  ditches,  keeping  the  bed  smooth,  and 
filling  up  any  little  washes  that  occur,  but  being  careful 
not  to  break  the  surface  of  the  ridges  or  banks.  If  they 
soon  become  covered  with  grass,  weeds,  and  scrub  pines, 
it  will  be  all  the  better.  These  ditches  will  take  the  wa- 
ter as  it  comes  pouring  down  the  hill  in  a  violent  rain, 
and  convey  it  away  down  a  slope  so  gentle  that  no  wash- 
ing can  take  place. 


COTTON   CULTURE.  105 

Iii  cultivating  the  land  that  has  been  thus  prepared,  let 
the  plowing  correspond  in  direction  and  slope  to  these 
ditches.  In  this  manner,  all  the  middles  between  the  beds 
will  have  the  same  fall,  that  is,  one  foot  in  a  hundred ; 
and,  except  in  very  long  and  violent  storms,  no  water  will 
pass  over  from  one  ridge  to  the  other,  that  is,  no  wash 
will  ever  cross  the  ridges  or  beds.  But  when  the  rain  is 
very  copious,  the  circle  ditches  are  at  hand  with  a  firm, 
sodded  bank,  to  arrest  the  destructive  torrent  and  confine 
the  waters  to  their  prescribed  courses. 

In  this  manner,  all  the  fertilizing  properties  of  the  soil 
may  be  retained  in  it,  and  directed  to  the  growth  of  useful 
plants ;  whereas,  if  washing  is  freely  permitted,  the  hill- 
side becomes  nothing  but  a  series  of  sluices  for  carrying 
off  some  of  the  best  constituents  of  the  mould  or  earth 
above. 

The  above  rule  of  one  foot  in  a  hundred  is  not  given  as 
a  specific.  In  some  localities  it  will  do ;  on  other  soils  it 
is  too  steep.  Judgment  and  experience  only  will  give  the 
true  grade.  The  plan  above  recommended  differs  but  lit- 
tle from  that  described  by  Mr.  Forman  in  his  paper,  pub- 
lished in  the  Patent  Office  Reports  for  1852. 

Mr.  Forman  recommends  changing  the  gra<^e  of  the 
circle  ditch  every  fifty  yards,  making  it  steeper  and 
steeper  as  the  bottom  of  the  hill  is  reached. 

Unless  the  nature  of  the  soil  changes  materially,  I  do 
not  see  the  propriety  of  Mr.  Forman's  suggestion.  If  a 
fall  of  one  inch  in  twelve  feet  is  proper  near  the  top  of  the 
hill,  why  is  not  that  the  best  grade  on  the  middle  and  near 
the  bottom  of  the  slope? 

He  proposes  a  fall  of  one  inch  in  twelve  feet  for  the  first 
fifty  yards,  counting  from  the  summit;  two  inches  in 
twelve  feet  for  the  next  fifty  yards;  four  in  twelve  feet 
for  the  next  fifty,  and  so  on  to  the  bottom. 

For  most  hill  lands,  in  the  cotton  States,  a  grade  of  one 
inch  in  ten  feet  for  the  entire  distance  will  be  found  better. 
5* 


106  COTTOX    CULTURE. 

As  a  cheap  yet  effective  tool  for  laying  off  this  grade, 
the  following  is  given.  It  is  Mr.  Forman's,  with  one  or 
two  modifications. 

Select  a  piece  of  ash  or  oak,  just  ten  feet  long,  one  inch 
thick,  and  four  inches  wide.  Mortice  it  into  a  leg  or  sup- 
port of  pine,  three  feet  long,  and  two  inches  square. 

Make  another  leg  three  feet  and  one  inch  long,  and  cut 
the  mortice  several  inches  long,  so  that  the  bar  or  lath  can 
be  moved  up  or  down  so  as  to  vary  the  length  of  the  fore 
leg,  as  compared  with  the  hind  leg,  two  or  three  inches. 

This  may  be  omitted  entirely  if  cheapness  is  an  object 
and  the  bar  fastened  by  screws,  which  can  be  drawn  so  as 
to  make  any  necessary  variation.  If  put  together  so  that 
each  leg  shall  be  of  the  same  length,  the  variation  can 
easily  be  made  by  screwing  a  block  of  an  inch  or  more  in 
thickness  on  the  foot  of  the  front  leg. 

To  complete  this  instrument  and  fit  it  for  use,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  fasten  on  it  a  small  spirit-level ;  this  can  be 
screwed  upon  the  side  of  the  bar  near  one  end,  or  on  the 
top  of  it.  Probably  a  long  slender  phial,  nearly  filled 
with  some  colored  fluid  and  fastened  to  the  top  of  the  bar, 
would  give  a  sufficient  degree  of  accuracy.  Now  having 
determined  upon  the  slope  of  the  ditch,  arrange  the  length 
of  the  legs  accordingly.  Your  assistant  stands  at  the 
point  where  you  wish  the  water  to  be  discharged,  that  is, 
fit  the  bottom  of  the  hill,  and  he  has  the  hind  leg.  He 
carries  a  handful  of  pins  in  his  hand.  The  operator  at  the 
front  leg  moves  that  end  either  up  or  down  the  slope,  un- 
til the  bar  is  level.  Mark  the  beginning  point  with  a  pin, 
and  move  on,  setting  the  hind  leg  in  the  track  just  made 
by  the  fore  leg,  and  sticking  a  pin.  The  path  thus  indi- 
cated by  the  row  of  pins  is  the  line  of  the  hill-side  ditch. 
It  should  go  three  or  four  inches  into  the  subsoil,  and  care 
should  be  exercised  so  as  not  to  have  short  turns,  as  their 
effect  is  to  throw  the  descending  water  against  the  em- 
bankment. 


COTTON    CULTURE.  107 

After  a  violent  shower  or  a  long  washing  rain,  it  will  be 
necessary  to  walk  through  the  ditches  to  stop  the  washes 
and  throw  out  the  bottoms  with  a  hoe.  In  these  visits 
the  farmer  will  often  see  slight  changes  that  can  be  made 
such  as  changing  the  grade  at  the  turns. 


Fig.  19. — INSTRUMENT   FOR   GRADING. 

a.  Lath  or  bar  12  feet  long,  one  inch  thick,  four  inches 
wide,  with  g,  a  spirit-level  screwed  upon  it. 

b.  Hind  leg,  2  inches  square,  3  feet  long. 

c.  Front  leg,  2  inches  square,  2^-  feet  long. 

d.  Sliding  leg,  2  inches  square,  3  feet  long,  graduated 
and  numbered  from  o  up  and  down  six  inches  each  way. 

e.  Thumb-screw  and  bolt,  by  which  the  sliding  leg  is 
made  fast  at  any  required  point ;  the  mark  c,  on  the  front 
leg,  corresponding  to  o,  on  the  sliding  leg. 

The  instrument  of  which  the  cut  is  given,  is  that  de- 
scribed by  Mr.  Forman.  One  much  cheaper  than  this,  as 
above  indicated,  will  answer  all  purposes. 

In  many  cases  the  feet  might  be  15  or  20  feet  apart. 
This  would  make  the  laying  off  much  more  rapid. 
Where  the  ground  is  not  sodded,  instead  of  using  pins, 
the  drawing  of  the  hind  leg  along  the  line  will  make  a 
sufficient  mark  to  guide  the  eye  of  the  plowman. 

It  will  also  be  found  practically  convenient  to  let  a 
plowman  follow  close  upon  the  rear  operator,  guiding  his 
horse  by  him.  A  day's  practice  will  enable  two  persons 
to  move  rapidly  enough  with  the  level  to  keep  a  plow  in 
steady  motion  behind  them,  and,  after  a  good  plowman 
has  followed  the  level  a  few  days,  his  eye  will  become  so 


108  COTTON    CULTURE. 

educated  that  he  can  lay  off  ditches  without  any  level, 
except  on  very  irregular  ground. 

We  come  now  to  a  consideration  of  the  proper  manures 
for  the  preservation  and  restoration  of  cotton  lands,  and 
the  best  manner  of  applying  them.  The  harvesting  of  the 
product  of  an  acre,  for  instance,  planted  in  cotton,  re- 
moves from  the  soil  about  sixteen  hundred  pounds  of  or- 
ganic matter,  of  which  four  hundred  pounds  is  in  the  form 
of  cotton-wool,  or  lint,  and  the  balance  in  cotton  seed. 
No  part  or  constituent  of  the  wool  is  ever  returned. 

Let  us  now  see  what  chemical  substances  are  abstracted 
in  taking  away  this  wool.  Suppose  a  hundred  parts  of 
cotton-wool  be  burned  to  an  ash,  and  this  ash  subjected  to 
chemical  tests.  What  will  appear  to  be  its  constituents  ? 
Thirty-one  per  cent.,  or  nearly  one-third,  is  potassa;  seven- 
teen, or  less  than  a  fifth,  is  lime ;  and  twelve  and  a  half 
per  cent.,  or  just  one-eighth,  is  phosphoric  acid ;  a  little 
magnesia,  and  a  little  sulphuric  acid  are  also  found. 

Thus,  for  every  ten  thousand  pounds  of  cotton-wool, 
which  might  be  expected  to  grow  on  twenty-five  acres, 
sixty  pounds  of  the  above  mentioned  ingredients  are  with- 
drawn from  the  soil.  That  is,  of  phosphoric  acid,  twelve 
pounds;  of  lime,  seventeen  pounds;  and  of  potassa, 
thirty-one  pounds.  Suppose  this  process  to  be  repeated 
for  twenty  years  upon  the  same  twenty-five  acres.  There 
will  have  been  withdrawn  from  the  soil  during  that  pe- 
riod two  hundred  and  forty  pounds  of  phosphoric  acid, 
three  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  of  lime,  and  six  hundred 
and  twenty  pounds  of  potassa.  Such  is  the  rate  at  which 
the  wool  or  staple  alone  of  the  cotton  exhausts  the  soil. 
The  consumption  is,  certainly,  very  moderate.  If  a  little 
more  than  half  a  ton  of  these  chemical  substances  were 
incorporated  with  the  soil  every  twenty  years,  or  what 
would  be  better,  sixty  pounds  a  year,  the  twenty-five  acre 
field  would  not  decrease  in  fertility. 

Suppose  now  that  the  cotton  seed  as  well  us  the  wool  is 


COTTON   CULTURE.  109 

not  returned  to  the  soil.  The  composition  of  the  ash  of 
cotton  seed  has  been  found  to  be  as  follows :  sixty-two 
per  cent.,  or  nearly  two-thirds,  is  phosphate  of  lime;  thir- 
ty-two per  cent.,  or  nearly  one-third,  is  phosphate  of  po- 
tassa ;  the  balance  is  made  up  of  a  little  sulphate  of  po- 
tassa,  a  little  silica,  with  slight  traces  of  the  carbonates  of 
lime,  magnesia,  and  potassa. 

Thus  it  appears  that,  as  a  dressing  or  fertilizer  for  cot- 
ton lands,  no  substance  is  superior  to  cotton  seed,  and 
when  this  is  used  as  fully  as  possible,  that  is,  when  all  the 
seed  of  a  crop  is  returned  to  the  soil  as  manure,  except 
what  is  necessary  to  germinate  the  crop  of  the  following 
year,  the  consumption  of  chemical  constituents  in  the  soil 
is  very  slow,  being  at  the  rate  of  sixty  pounds  for  twenty- 
five  acres,  or  a  little  over  two  pounds  to  the  acre.  Of  the 
three  mineral  ingredients  abstracted  by  the  cotton-wool, 
two  are  easily  replaced,  the  potash  and  the  lime..  Com- 
mon wood  ashes,  and  plaster,  or  slaked  lime,  or  bones 
burned  or  crushed,  will  easily  supply  this  demand.  The 
requirement  for  phosphoric  acid  is  not  so  easily  met. 
The  demand  for  it  is  moderate  and  the  consumption  slow, 
being  at  the  rate  of  only  half  a  pound  to  the  acre,  but  the 
necessity  for  this  element,  in  order  to  produce  a  healthy 
plant,  is  imperative ;  and  in  all  soils  that  are  not  alluvial, 
that  is,  where  there  is  not  a  great  abundance  of  fine  vege- 
table mould,  the  demand  for  phosphorus  is  probably  the 
reason  why  diseases  of  various  sorts,  such  as  the  rust  and 
the  rot,  attack  the  plant. 

In  addition  to  lime  and  ashes,  some  fertilizer  containing 
the  phosphates  must  be  used.  Compost,  or  barn-yard 
manure,  and  bone  manure,  will  supply  this  element. 
Weeds  abounding  in  the  alkalies  furnish  profitable  vege- 
table matter  for  making  a  good  compost.  Muck  or  peat, 
which  is  decayed  vegetable  matter  in  mass,  contains  a 
large  amount  of  the  phosphates  and«the  alkalies. 

To  give  a  summary  then,  of  the  best  manure  for  cotton 


110  COTTON   CULTURE. 

lands,  we  may  say :  Make  a  compost  heap  by  hauling 
muck  to  the  barn-yard,  and  allowing  hogs  to  root  it  over 
and'  wallow  upon  it.  The  droppings  of  barn-yard  fowls 
should  be  added  as  being  particularly  rich  in  the  phos- 
phates. Some  lime  and  ashes  may  profitably  be  sprinkled 
from  time  to  time  upon  the  pile.  When  this  compost  ma- 
nure is  rich  in  all  these  elements,  it  should  be  applied 
liberally,  and  in  connection  with  it,  the  mode  of  plowing 
and  ditching  above  described  should  be  employed  so  as  to 
retain  upon  the  soil  all  the  fertilizing  salts.  If  twenty-five 
acres  of  land,  which  is  naturally  good  cotton  land,  is 
dressed  with,  say,  a  cord  to  the  acre  of  compost  manure 
such  as  is  described,  there  is  no  reason  in  the  nature  of 
things  why  it  should  not,  for  ten  years  at  least,  and  prob- 
ably for  twenty,  continue  to  produce  a  bale  to  the  acre. 

Of  the  condensed  fertilizers  it  is  probable  that  guano, 
the  most  powerful  of  all  the  manures,  being  the  ordure  of 
sea  birds  and  containing  a  large  amount  of  bone  earth, 
and  being  also  particularly  rich  in  the  phosphates,  is  the 
best.  Next  to  guano  may  be  mentioned  crushed  bones, 
or  bone  ashes ;  and  it  may  be  well  in  this  connection  to 
give  Liebig's  rule  for  the  preparation  of  bone  manure. 

"Pour  over  the  crushed  bones  or  bone  ashes  half  their 
weight  of  sulphuric  acid,  diluted  with  four  parts  of  water. 
Add  one  hundred  parts  of  water,  after  the  former  mixture 
has  been  digested  for  twenty-four  hours.  Sprinkle  this 
mixture  over  the  field  immediately  before  plowing.  By 
this  action,  in  a  few  seconds,  the  free  acids  unite  with  the 
bases  contained  in  the  earth.  A  neutral  salt  is  formed  in 
a  very  fine  state  of  division,  that  is  very  uniformly  and 
evenly  dispersed  through  the  soil." 

By  this  manner  of  applying  manure,  it  is  rendered  so 
fine  and  so  thoroughly  mixed  with  the  soil  that  the  roots 
of  the  plants  find  it  in  every  direction. 

The  practice  of  manuring  in  the  drill,  or  in  the  hill, 
which  is  successful  with  corn,  does  not  answer  at  all  with 


COTTOX    CULTURE.  Ill 

cotton.  Throw  a  shovelful  of  strong  stable  manure  into 
a  shallow  pit  and  cover  it  with  an  inch  of  earth,  and  you 
have  a  bed  on  which  Indian  corn  will  be  almost  certain  to 
sprout,  and  where,  in  a  favorable  season,  it  will  grow  vig- 
orously. 

If  a  dozen  or  more  cotton  seeds  were  dropped  on  a  pre- 
cisely similar  bed,  the  probabilities  are  that  not  a  single 
one  would  ever  germinate  or  produce  a  healthy  plant. 
They  would  all  rot.  The  reason  of  this  was  very  carefully 
investigated  some  years  since  by  Dr.  Cloud,  a  cotton 
planter  in  Alabama,  one  of  the  most  intelligent,  as  well  as 
industrious,  agriculturists  that  ever  gave  thorough  and  pa- 
tient investigation  to  all  the  details  and  reasons  of  success- 
ful cotton  growing. 

Dr.  Cloud  at  first  manured  generously  in  the  hill,  allow- 
ing half  a  gallon  of  compost  to  each  plant.  The  cotton 
grew  finely  after  it  came  up,  but  he  could  get  no  stand  by 
this  method.  He  found,  after  experimenting  and  careful 
investigation,  that  the  unnatural  warmth  and  dryness  pro- 
duced by  a  mass  of  strong  manure,  is  fatal  to  the  germi- 
nation of  cotton  seed.  "  The  cotton  seed,"  says  he,  "  in  the 
process  of  germination,  attracts  from  the  surrounding  soil 
and  from  the  atmosphere  an  unusual  amount  of  water  as 
compared  with  other  seed  undergoing  this  process.  Any 
artificial  condition  of  the  soil  which  concentrates  immedi- 
ately about  the  cotton  seed  at  this  time  an  undue  quantity 
of  alkaline,  gaseous  matter,  causes  the  fluid  contained  in 
the  tender,  reticulated  or  mesh-like,  incipient,  vegetable 
fibre,  to  undergo  a  species  of  fermentation  which,  of 
course,  destroys  the  vitality  of  the  young  plant.  Cotton 
is  subject  to  this  influence  where  a  quantity  of  good  ma- 
nure, either  compost,  guano,  or  chemical  fertilizers  have 
been  used  in  the  hill. 

"  The  tap-root  of  the  cotton  plant  does  not  make  its 
way  into  the  soil  a  perfectly  organized  root ;  the  radix  or 
tap,  leaving  the  seed  at  the  small  end,  plunges  directly 


112  COTTON    CULTURE. 

downward,  and  commences  pouring  out  a  semi-fluid  sub- 
stance which  passes  downward,  partly  by  the  force  of 
gravity. 

u  This  substance  is  remarkably  delicate  and  fragile,  easily 
broken  up  and  disturbed  by  any  foreign  or  unkindly  pres- 
ence. It  is  the  mould  in  which  the  tap-root  is  formed. 
Thus  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  an  unnatural  alkaliza- 
tion,  or  the  warmth  and  ferment  produced  by  fresh  and 
strong  manure  in  the  close  vicinity  of  a  vegetable  process 
so  delicate,  should  affect  and  generally  destroy  its  vitality." 

After  making  this  discovery,  Dr.  Cloud,  by  no  means 
ceased  the  use  of  compost  manures  on  his  cotton.  He 
spread  it  on  broadcast  and  plowed  it  in. 

He  communicated  the  results  of  his  various  experiments 
and  discoveries  to  the  Albany  Cultivator,  and  the  follow- 
ing condensed  instructions  on  scientific  cotton  culture  may 
be  taken  as  a  summary  of  Dr.  Cloud's  method,  with  vari- 
ous additions  and  suggestions  derived  from  the  experience 
of  the  author  of  this  Treatise. 

"High  farming,"  when  cotton  is  the  chief  crop,  does  not 
consist  in  drawing  large  crops  from  virgin  or  from  alluvial 
mould,  returning  nothing  and  exhausting  any  soil  that  is 
not,  like  the  alluvions  of  the  Mississippi  or  the  Nile, 
strictly  inexhaustible.  The  truly  successful  cotton  planter 
is  not  the  man  who  manages,  year  by  year,  to  take  a 
thousand  bales  from  a  thousand  acres  of  Mississippi  bot- 
tom or  the  black  cane  lands  of  middle  Alabama.  The 
really  admirable  manager  is  one  who  takes  average  land, 
the  natural  growth  of  which  is  pine  or  forky-leaf  black 
oak,  or  small  white  oak,  keeps  it  in  as  good  condition  as 
he  found  it,  or  even  better,  raises  his  own  meats,  vegeta- 
bles and  wool,  and  one  year  with  another  takes  as  much 
cotton  from  an  acre  as  his  neighbors,  working  in  the  old 
way,  take  from  three ! 

By  what  system  of  agriculture,  now,  can  these  results 
be  obtained  ? 


COTTON   CULTURE.  113 

First  of  all,  let  the  planter  who  aspires  to  brilliant 
success  in  his  profession  prepare  his  lands  so  as  to  prevent 
washing,  and  retain  in  the  soil  all  the  fertilizing  salts  he 
finds  there,  and  all  he  may  add  by  generous  manuring. 
The  precise  methods  by  which  this  is  done  are  given  in 
detail  in  the  first  pages  of  this  chapter. 

Now  let  him  arrange  for  a  rotation  of  crops  as  follows. 
Divide  the  plowed  land  into  three  parts  or  tracts,  not  by 
fences,  but  "  in  your  mind's  eye,  Horatio,"  assigning  for 
each  farm  laborer  five  acres  in  cotton,  ten  in  corn,  rye, 
wheat,  oats,  barley  and  potatoes,  according  to  soil  and 
climate,  and  allowing  five  to  remain  fallow.  Calculate  to 
have  on  the  farm  stock  enough  to  consume  all  the  food 
that  grows  on  those  ten  acres  per  hand,  mules,  horses, 
oxen,  cows,  sheep,  goats  and  poultry,  and  lay  it  down  as 
a  first  principle  that  no  manure  is  to  be  wasted.  For  that 
purpose  provide  a  series  of  stock  pens  on  the  most  level 
land  that  the  place  affords,  fence  them  high,  and  throw  up 
a  little  bank  at  the  fence,  so  the  tendency  of  the  wash 
will  be  towards  the  centre.  Here  erect  a  shed  on  four 
posts,  the  ends  that  enter  the  ground  being  charred.  Let 
the  shed  be  about  twenty  feet  square  and  hip-roofed. 

Let  every  animal  on  the  place  be  confined  at  night  in 
these  enclosures,  or  in  stables,  and  provide  an  abundance 
of  litter.  Leaves  from  the  forest,  and  particularly  pine 
straw,  is  better  even  than  wheat  or  oat  straw,  as  it  is 
shorter  and  contains  more  potash.  Moisture  is  needed  in 
order  to  rot  any  litter  you  may  use.  Yet,  if  the  manure 
heap  is  too  wet,  you  carry  an  unnecessary  amount  of  wa- 
ter into  the  field.  Hence  the  best  plan  is,  to  scrape  the 
cattle  yards  on  wet  days,  piling  the  compost  under  the 
sheds,  there  to  ferment  and  decay.  As  soon  as  a  yard  is 
scraped  down,  cover  with  fresh  litter  from  the  forest ;  this 
also  can  be  more  conveniently  gathered  on  wet  days,  or 
immediately  after  a  ram,  while  it  is  yet  too  moist  for 
plowing.  When  the  successive  layers  are  thus  collected 


114  COTTON   CULTURE. 

under  the  shed,  other  and  more  concentrated  fertilizers 
may  be  added.  If  your  soil  is  deficient  in  lime,  sprinkle, 
say  a  bushel,  every  time  the  yard  is  scraped.  Wood  ashes 
never  come  amiss  on  any  soil.  Sprinkle  over  the  compost 
heaps  all  the  ashes  the  place  affords,  never  allowing  a 
shovelful  to  be  thrown  away  or  to  become  leached  by  the 
rain.  Obtain  a  few  pounds  of  sulphuric  acid,  and  after  it 
has  eaten  up  all  the  bones  and  decayed  animal  matter  on 
the  place,  sprinkle  it  upon  the  compost  beds.  The  de- 
cayed leaves  and  the  ashes  will  afford  the  potash  your 
crops  want ;  the  bones  and  the  ordure  will  yield  the  phos- 
phoric acid  and  the  lime. 

In  this  manner,  when  March  comes,  there  will  be  five 
hundred  bushels  of  compost  manure  for  every  acre  of  cot- 
ton. The  land  upon  which  it  is  to  be  spread  was  fallow 
the  year  before,  and  thus  •  the  cocoons  of  the  Boll-worm 
are  all  dead.  Mark  off  the  field  by  a  scooter  plow  (unless 
the  old  rows  are  visible)  into  lines ;  the  first,  fifteen  feet 
from  the  fence,  and  the  others,  thirty  feet  apart.  On  these 
lines  or  rows  deposit  the  manure,  in  heaps  of  ten  bushels 
each.  This  is  easily  done  by  having  the  capacity  of  the 
cart  twenty  bushels,  and  hoeing  out  half  at  the  first  heap 
and  dumping  the  rest  of  the  load  for  the  second.  In  this 
way  the  manure  is  evenly  distributed  at  the  rate  of  ten 
bushels  to  nine  hundred  square  feet,  which  is  within  a 
small  fraction  of  five  hundred  bushels  per  acre.  With 
compost  manure,  made  up  as  described,  and  especially  that 
to  winch  ashes,  lime,  dissolved  bones  or  guano  has  been 
added,  this  allowance  is  heavy  manuring  and  very  thrifty 
plants  may  be  expected.  Accordingly,  the  rows  should 
be  laid  off  wide ;  five  feet  is  none  too  wide.  Mark  the 
beds  by  running  a  plow  at  this  interval  that  will  make  a 
deep,  narrow,  furrow.  Now  spread  the  compost,  throwing 
some,  but  not  a  great  deal,  into  this  furrow,  and  let  the 
turn  or  mould-board  plow  follow,  casting  two  furrows 
toward  and  into  this  first  trench,  and  continue  running  un* 


COTTOX    CULTTTBE. 


til  all  the  middles  are  broken  out  and  the  manure 
covered  in.  v|  / 


This  should  be  done  a  month  before 
from  the  first  to  the  tenth  of  April,  if  the  season^rs^, 
ciently  warm  and  dry,  harrow  the  beds  and  mark  not 
the  line  of  the  rows,  making  them  perfectly  uniform  and 
straight,  but  by  cross  plowing  lay  off  the  distance  of  the 
plants  from  each  other  in  the  drill. 

Probably  with  this  high  manuring,  thirty  or  thirty-six 
inches  ought  to  be  allowed.  Plant  by  dropping  three  or 
four  seeds  in  the  drill  at  the  point  indicated  by  the  marker. 
The  best  way  of  preparing  seeds  is  to  roll  them  in  a  mix- 
ture of  lime  and  ashes,  with  which  a  little  guano  has  been 
mixed,  having  soaked  them  previously  in  stable  manure, 
to  which  salt  and  water  have  been  added.  Treated  thus, 
germination  will  be  almost  certain  and  prompt.  As  soon 
as  the  third  leaf  appears,  go  over  the  crop  with  the  hoe, 
for,  with  the  thorough  plowing  and  harrowing,  very  little 
grass  will  have  made  its  appearance  in  ten  days. 

Select  the  thriftiest  plant  and  destroy  all  the  others, 
thus  thinning  out  to  a  stand  at  once,  and  leaving  the  fields 
perfectly  clean.  In  this  way,  all  the  vigor  of  the  soil,  and 
the  dressing  which  has  been  thus  generously  applied,  is 
concentrated  upon  the  plants,  and  they  may  be  expected 
to  thrive  and  grow  very  rapidly. 

The  cultivation  can  be  done  almost  entirely  with  the 
plow  and  scraper  after  the  second  hoeing.  Twice,  at 
least,  before  the  plants  attain  their  growth,  the  scraper 
may  be  run  each  way ;  and  as  there  is  entire  uniformity 
throughout  the  field,  the  rows  being  exactly  five  feet 
apart,  and  the  plants  in  the  row  precisely  three  feet  asun- 
der, there  will  be  no  difficulty  in  running  the  wing  of  the 
scraper  within  two  inches  of  the  plant  on  all  sides. 

After  the  first  of  June  the  limbs  of  the  plants  in  the 
rows  will  commence  to  interlock,  so  that  the  plows  can  be 
run  only  between  the  beds,  that  is,  in  the  five  foot  inter- 


116  COTTON    CULTURE. 

val.  Here  the  plowing  may  be  continued  through  the 
greater  part  of  July,  as  frequently  as  the  condition  of  the 
crop  requires  it. 

Now,  what  returns  may  be  expected  from  a  field  thus 
manured,  thus  planted,  and  thus  cultivated?  Dr.  Cloud 
tells  us  that  in  this  way  he  made  at  least  double  crops  and 
sometimes  treble,  that  is,  he  took  as  much  cotton  from 
his  five  acres  as  his  neighbors  from  their  ten  or  fifteen 
acres,  cultivated  in  the  old  style. 

It  will  be  observed  that  cotton  seed  is  not  recommended 
as  a  direct  or  immediate  manure  for  the  cotton  plant.  It 
has  been  found  that  cotton  thrives  better  on  the  second 
year  after  a  liberal  application  of  cotton-seed  manure  than 
on  the  first.  It  seems  that  cotton  seed  is,  at  the  first,  too 
heating  as  a  manure,  creating  as  it  does  some  fermentation 
in  the  drill.  Afterward,  when  fermentation  is  ended, 
there  is  a  tendency  to  an  undue  stimulation  of  the  plant  to 
the  production  of  woody  fibre.  In  other  words,  the  plant 
that  is  strongly  stimulated  by  cotton  seed,  tends  to  growth 
rather  than  productiveness.  For  this  reason,  it  is  found 
better  to  reserve  that  part  of  cotton  seed  intended  for  ma- 
nures, and  apply  it  as  a  direct  and  powerful  fertilizer  to 
the  corn.  In  this  manner  a  very  fine  crop  is  taken  from 
the  field  the  next  year  after  the  corn  is  harvested,  and  the 
force  of  the  cotton  seed  and  of  the  compost  manuring  of 
the  previous  year,  become  sensible  in  the  third  year  in  the 
crop  of  wheat,  barley,  oats,  millet,  peas,  or  potatoes,  which 
are  grown  on  the  second  year  after  the  cotton.  On  the 
fourth  year  the  land  is  permitted  to  rest  and  "  enjoy  its 
Sabbath." 

By  this  system  of  rotation  the  cotton-louse,  the  rust, 
the  dry  rot,  and  the  Boll-worm,  are  quite  sure  to  be  pre- 
vented, and  the  only  risks  which  the  planter  takes  in  his 
cotton  are  the  dangers  from  caterpillar,  the  Army-worm, 
or  an  early  frost.  By  promptness  and  energy  the  two 
former  may  be  successfully  contended  with,  and  the  more 


COTTON   CULTURE.  117 

so  as  the  cotton  field  is  only  half  as  large  as  that  com- 
monly put  in  cultivation  by  the  same  number  of  hands. 

By  following  this  method  of  thorough  manuring  and 
systematic  rotation,  the  certainty  that  the  planter  may  feel 
in  his  cotton  crop  is  much  greater,  and  the  large  amount 
of  cereals  and  edibles  which  he  raises,  and  the  abundance 
of  stock  which  he  consequently  keeps  upon  his  place,  ren- 
der him  much  more  independent  of  his  merchant  in  case 
of  a  failure  of  the  cotton  crop ;  and  he  is  also  much  more 
able  to  prescribe  the  time  of  selling,  and  the  price,  than  if 
he  had  a  heavy  balance  against  him  for  pork,  beef,  flour, 
and  clothes,  already  advanced  by  his  factor.  But  the 
crowning  advantage  or  recommendation  of  this  system  is, 
that  his  lands  are  all  the  time  growing  better.  The  fer- 
tilizing salts,  incorporated  with  the  soil  in  the  five  hundred 
bushels  per  acre  of  rich  compost  manure,  followed  by  a 
liberal  dressing  of  cotton  seed  the  next  year,  are  not  ex- 
hausted by  the  three  successive  crops  of  cotton,  corn,  and 
cereals  which  are  taken  from  the  land.  As  the  surface  is 
so  ditched  and  plowed  that  the  fertilizing  properties  added 
in  the  manures  are  all  retained,  it  opens  richer  on  the 
fourth  year  after  enjoying  its  rest  of  one  year,  than  it  did 
at  the  commencement  of  the  former  series,  so  that  in  six- 
teen or  twenty  years  of  this  "high  farming,"  which  is 
nothing  more  than  true  farming,  the  cotton  grower  may 
confidently  expect  to  see  his  plants  standing  six  and  eight 
feet  high,  the  branches  interlocking  on  both  sides,  each 
plant  loaded  with  bolls,  and  the  field  yielding  considerably 
over  two  bales  to  the  acre  ;  while  within  rifle  shot  he  may 
see  the  lands  of  his  neighbors  covered  with  little  stunted 
plants  twenty  inches  high,  admitting  of  free  passage  along 
rows  that  are  four  feet  wide,  suffering  every  year  from 
some  of  the  diseases  that  befall,  or  the  enemies  that  attack 
the  plant,  so  that  the  average  yield,  one  year  with  anoth- 
er, will  not  be  much  over  half  a  bale  to  the  acre. 

This  almost  incredible  difference  is  wholly  due  to  a 


118  COTTOX   CULTURE. 

strict  adherence  to  what  should  be  regarded  as  a  cardinal 
principle  in  all  farming  operations.  That  is,  always  to  re- 
turn to  the  soil  more  fertilizing  properties  in  the  form  of 
manure  than  are  removed  in  the  crops  •  and  to  cultivate 
every  crop  with  such  thoroughness  that  the  entire  produc- 
tive energy  of  the  soil  and  its  constituents  will  be  con- 
served and  concentrated  upon  the  plant  in  cultivation. 

Another  advantage  which  the  cotton  grower  will  reap 
by  this  system  of  generous  manuring,  and  particularly  by 
the  use  of  fertilizers  which  are  rich  in  phosphates,  is  the 
improvement  of  his  seed,  and  consequently  an  increase  in 
the  length  and  fineness  of  his  staple ;  for  an  excellent 
quality  and  an  abundant  yield  of  cotton-wool  can  no 
more  be  expected  from  seeds  which  are  dwarfish,  than 
large  clips  of  wool  can  be  taken  from  small,  half-starved 
sheep.  The  improved  varieties  of  cotton  seed  which  are 
introduced  from  time  to  time,  and  whose  merits  are  loudly 
vaunted,  are  nothing  more  than  the  product  of  common 
varieties,  grown  in  a  favorable  season,  on  fertile  soil,  and 
in  the  best  part  of  the  cotton  zone. 

Improve  the  cotton  seed,  and  your  staple  is  directly 
augmented  in  value.  It  is  on  this  account  that  guano  has 
been  found  an  excellent  fertilizer  for  cotton.  It  does  not 
stimulate  the  growth  of  a  plant  so  rapidly  as  some  other 
manures,  but  it  tends  directly  to  perfect  the  seed  and  the 
staple.  It  can  be  used  to  great  profit.  Ten  dollars  worth 
of  it,  or  three  hundred  pounds  per  acre,  properly  applied 
to  land  that,  without  it,  might  produce  a  thousand  pounds 
of  cotton,  will  double  the  crop,  due  allowance  being  made 
for  the  casualties  and  vicissitudes  affecting  the  cotton 
plant,  as  guano  is  no  specific  against  any  of  its  ills,  except 
the  lice  and  sore-shin. 

It  should  be  remarked  that  guano  as  well  as  compost 
manure  ought  to  be  applied  early  in  the  season,  and  well 
blended  with  the  soil  by  the  plow  and  harrow.  It  is  a 
sort  of  medicine  to  the  soil,  so  to  speak,  and  its  immediate 


COTTON   CULTURE.  119 

effects  should  have  time  to  pass  away  before  the  seeds  are 
presented  for  germination.  As  guano  is  particularly  rich 
in  phosphate,  it  is  well  to  use  it  in  combination  with  a  fer- 
tilizer that  supplies  some  other  principal  constituent  of  the 
plant,  as,  for  instance,  lime.  Hence,  it  is  recommended  to 
mix  a  bushel  of  guano  with  half  a  bushel  of  plaster  of 
Paris,  or  sulphate  of  lime,  and  apply  it  at  the  time  of  the 
first  plowing,  when  the  beds  are  thrown  up.  The  effect 
of  one  will  be  to  stimulate  the  fibrous  growth  of  the 
plant  and  give  it  size ;  of  the  other  to  increase  its  produc- 
tiveness, by  enlarging  the  size  of  the  seeds,  increasing 
their  vigor,  and  thus  producing  a  staple  that  is  longer 
and  more  finely  colored  by  the  oil  that  is  drawn  from  the 
seed. 


CHAPTER      IV. 

THE    VARIOUS    KINDS    OF    COTTON   CULTIVATED    IN    THE 
UNITED    STATES. 

There  are  two  leading  varieties  of  cotton  cultivated  in 
the  United  States,  the  black  seed  and  the  green  seed. 
The  black  seed  is  botanically  known  as  the  tree  cotton,  or 
Gossypium  arboreum,  and  came  from  India.  The  green 
seed,  or  bearded  cotton,  is  of  Mexican  or  West  India 
origin.  The  nankin  or  yellow  differs  from  the  Mexican 
mostly  in  the  color  of  its  staple,  it  being  of  a  pale  yellow 
hue.  Peruvian  cotton  has  been  introduced  and  cultivated 
to  some  extent ;  it  has  black  seeds  which  cling  firmly  to- 
gether, while  the  seeds  of  the  Sea  Island  are  separate  and 
easily  parted  from  the  wool. 

The  cultivation  of  the  Sea  Island  is  local,  and  the 
amount  produced  in  this  country,  as  compared  with  the 


120  COTTON    CULTURE. 

Upland  or  Greeii  Seed,  is  as  one  to  one  hundred.  As  tlie 
soil,  climate,  and  mode  of  ginning  of  the  Sea  Island  are 
all  different  from  the  Upland,  some  account  will  be  given 
at  the  close  of  this  chapter. 

The  Mexican  seed  was  introduced  from  that  country 
about  the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  The  story  is 
that  our  Consul  at  the  City  of  Mexico,  noticing  the  supe- 
rior quality  of  the  staple  grown  in  that  country,  asked 
permission  of  that  Government  to  bring  home  a  quantity 
of  the  seed.  His  request  was  refused ;  but  afterwards, 
when  dining  with  one  of  the  Ministers,  he  was  told  that 
he  could  not  take  cotton  seed  out  of  the  country,  but  the 
Mexican  Government  would  make  no  objection  to  his  ex- 
porting as  many  dolls  as  he  might  wish  to.  The  Consul 
took  the  hint,  and  ordered  several  hundred  dolls  to  be 
stuffed  with  choice  cotton  seed.  Thus  the  famous  "  Mexi- 
can seed,"  known  from  James  River  to  the  Rio  Grande, 
became  domesticated  in  the  United  States.  Its  peculiarity 
seems  to  be  its  adaptation  to  a  dry,  uniform  climate.  The 
wool  or  staple  is  white,  with  a  faint  tinge  of  yellow,  after 
it  has  laid  for  some  time  in  the  seed.  In.  a  dry  season, 
when  the  supplies  of  moisture  have  been  moderate,  and  in 
small  quantities  at  a  time,  the  staple  of  the  Mexican  is 
long,  even  and  soft ;  the  bolls  open  wide,  and  the  weight 
of  the  seeds  pulls  the  wool  out,  and  causes  it  to  hang  in  a 
long  silken  tuft  or  handful,  which,  if  not  picked  for  some 
time  after  opening,  is  liable  to  become  soiled  with  mud  and 
sand,  or,  after  frost,  filled  with  fragments  from  the  leaves 
and  pods. 

A  number  of  planters  in  the  s6uthern  part  of  Mississip- 
pi, near  where  Rodney  now  stands,  were  among  the  first, 
if  not  the  very  first,  to  pay  attention  to  the  improvement 
of  cotton  seed.  They  produced  an  excellent  quality, 
which  was  much  in  demand  in  all  parts  of  the  South. 
Their  bags  were  marked  "Petit  Gulf,"  the  name  of  a 
small  shipping  point  on  the  river  where  an  eddy  in  the 


COTTOX   CULTURE. 

stream  made  a  little  bay  or  gulf.  From  this  circumstance 
the  seed  was  universally  known  as  "  Petit  Gulf,"  or  Gulf 
Seed,  and  under  that  name  has  been  so  extensively  used 
in  all  parts  of  the  South,  except  the  Sea  Islands,  that  it 
may  be  regarded  as  the  seed  from  which  the  "  American 
Upland"  of  commerce  has  been  produced.  Beginning 
with  the  year  1820,  and  from  that  time  forward,  various 
planters  in  different  parts  of  the  cotton  growing  States 
have  devoted  themselves  to  the  development  and  sale  of 
improved  varieties  of  cotton  seed,  and  certain  styles  of 
cotton  have  for  two,  three,  or  four  years,  enjoyed  a  great, 
though  ephemeral  popularity,  and  then,  as  suddenly,  been 
pushed  aside  for  a  new  reigning  favorite. 

The  improvement  of  cotton  seed  as  a  business,  and  the 
sale  of  the  improved  varieties,  has  enabled  quite  a  number 
of  prominent  and  enterprising  planters  throughout  the 
South  to  realize  handsome  fortunes.  It  is  probable  that, 
as  a  manure,  cotton  seed  is  seldom  worth  more  than  twen- 
ty-five cents  a  bushel,  or,  at  least,  twenty-five  cents  judic- 
iously expended  in  making  good  compost  or  barn-yard 
manure  will  produce  as  much  fertilizing  power  as  can  be 
obtained  from  a  bushel  of  cotton  seed.  But  a  good 
quality  of  Petit  Gulf,  or  Mexican,  commands  at  least  fifty 
cents,  and  the  choice  varieties,  such  as  the  "  Sugar  Loaf," 
the  "  Brown,"  the  "  Hundred  Seed,"  and  many  others  that 
could  be  named, such  as  the  "Banana,"  the  " Multibolus," 
the  "Prolific,"  under  ordinary  circumstances,  command 
from  one  to  three  dollars  per  bushel.  A  bushel  of  cotton 
seed  weighs  from  twenty-five  to  thirty  pounds.  An  acre 
produces,  of  the  cotton  wool,  say  four  hundred  pounds, 
and  of  the  seed  fourteen  hundred  pounds.  Thus,  for  ma- 
nure, the  product  of  an  acre  in  cotton  seed  is  worth  eleven 
dollars. 

It  is  practicable  for  every  cotton  grower  by  selec- 
tion, improvement,  and  judicious  cultivation,  to  pro- 
duce an  improved  seed.  Now,  how  is  this  to  be  done  ? 
6 


122  COTTON   CULTURE. 

In  general,  it  may  be  said,  that  cotton  seed,  like  corn,  po- 
tatoes, or  wheat,  is  improved  by  cultivating  the  plant  in 
the  best  manner,  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances, 
and  then  selecting  from  each  stalk  those  bolls  which  are 
the  largest,  the  finest,  and  the  most  perfectly  matured. 
The  seeds  from  these  bolls  are,  after  ginning,  to  be  again 
picked  over,  all  that  are  blasted  or  imperfectly  shaped, 
rejected,  and  the  remainder  carefully  tended,  so  as  not  to 
become  fermented,  or  in  any  manner  damaged  before 
planting  time  of  the  following  year. 

Probably  as  much  depends  upon  locality  as  upon  any 
other  circumstance  with  respect  to  the  improvement  of 
cotton  seed.  Choice  varieties  never  come  from  the  rank, 
moist  lands  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  near  Natchez; 
neither  does  the  neighborhood  of  Memphis  afford  superior 
seed.  The  first  improvements  in  cotton  seed  in  this  coun- 
try were  made,  as  above  stated,  by  painstaking  with  the 
original  Mexican  seed,  on  the  part  of  a  few  planters  living 
on  the  Mississippi  River,  not  far  below  Vicksburg.  The 
immediate  vicinity  of  Yicksburg  has  also  been  remarkable 
for  yielding  superior  varieties.  -Colonel  Vick,  of  that  city, 
a  descendant  of  the  man  from  whom  the  place  is  named, 
has  been  the  most  persevering  and  the  most  successful  of 
all  the  Mississippi  planters  in  the  art  of  perfecting  cotton. 

Another  very  successful  and  somewhat  more  noted  agri- 
culturist, remarkable  for  the  great  variety  as  well  as  the 
excellence  of  his  seed,  is  Mr.  M.  W.  Phillips,  of  Edwards, 
Mississippi,  a  small  town  in  Hinds  County,  a  few  miles 
north  of  the  capital  of  the  State.  In  1848,  Mr.  Phillips 
wrote :  "  The  seed  most  relied  on  in  Mississippi  and  Lou- 
isiana is  Mexican  seed,  known  in  Carolina  and  Georgia 
as  'Petit -Gulf  seed,  because  there  first  planted  and  im- 
proved, on  the  hills  around  Rodney,  Mississippi,  where 
the  improvement  began ;  but  there  is  just  as  good  seed, 
at  present,  elsewhere,  as  in  that  vicinity.  We  plant 
'Sugar-loaf,'  or  'Prolific,'  ' Lewis' Prolific,'  'Yicks'  Hun- 


COTTON   CULTURE.  123 

dred  Seed,'  '  Guatemala,'  '  Brown  Seed,'  and  others.  Ex- 
cept the  '  Guatemala,'  they  are  all,  I  believe,  mere  selec- 
tions from  the  Mexican." 

Probably  the  most  noted  and,  on  many  accounts,  the 
best  varieties  or  developments  from  the  original  "Petit 
Gulf,"  are  the  "Prolific "  and  the  " Sugar-loaf "  seeds.  A 
planter  in  Hinds  County,  writing  upon  the  characteristics 
of  the  latter  variety  in  1848,  says :  "  This  day,  being 
called  into  my  field  south  of  my  pasture,  where  I  have  my 
selected  'Sugar-loaf  seed  planted,  I  was  so  forcibly 
struck  with  the  prospect,  that  I  conceive  it  my  duty  to 
draw  attention  thereto.  I  saw,  repeatedly,  limbs  with  six, 
eight,  ten  and  twelve  bolls  and  forms,  which  were  not 
that  many  inches  long ;  I  could  span  so  as  to  reach  ten 
without  any  exertion.  I  have  forty  acres  planted  with 
Sugar-loaf  seed,  and  think,  I  can  reasonably  calculate  on 
fifty  bales,  and  I  do  not  know  of  any  other  forty  acres  of 
Petit  Gulf  seed,  in  this  region,  which  promises  forty  bales. 
My  seeds  have  been  planted  remote  from  others  for  these 
two  years ;  they  were  selected  from  the  field  by  myself, 
assisted  by  a  very  careful  laborer ;  yet  I  find  a  great  ten- 
dency in  this  seed,  as  in  all  the  improved  varieties,  to  run 
back,  which  can  only  be  guarded  against  by  careful, 
yearly  selection." 

The  same  agriculturist,  writing  seven  years  later,  in 
'1855,  gives  the  following  summary  with  regard  to  the 
improved  cotton  seed  in  that  vicinity.  "  We  will  plant  as 
nearly  an  entire  crop,  as  we  have  good  seed,  with  the 
'Cluster'  cotton  seed.  This  is  the  original  name,  but 
known  now  by  as  many  different  styles  as  there  are  per- 
sons who  desire  to  make  money  by  selling  seed.  We  ex- 
pect to  plant  'Silk,'  ' Hundred  Seed,'  'Sugar-loaf,'  'Draw,' 
and  small  parcels  of  others.  The  '  Cluster,'  or  '  Banana,' 
has  been  much  improved.  The  best  now  on  sale  is 
'  Boyd's  Prolific ' ;  from  this  I  have  culled  very  carefully 
for  three  years.  Many  who  have  seen  this  selection  deem 


124  COTTON    CULTURE. 

it  better  than  the  original  accidental  variety ;  for  I  learn 
from  Mr.  Boyd  that  the  '  Prolific '  seed,  which  has  become 
so  noted,  originated  from  an  accidental  stalk  which  he 
found  among  his  cotton,  which  he  considered  very  remark- 
able for  the  number  of  bolls  it  contained.  He  carefully 
preserved  all  the  seed  of  this  extraordinary  specimen,  and 
very  properly  names  it  the  'Prolific.'  'Silk'  is  perhaps 
better  for  all  descriptions  of  land ;  many  of  my  friends 
prefer  it  to  'Banana,'  objecting  to  the  latter  for  poor 
lands,  and  also  for  rich  fresh  land.  On  the  first  the  forms 
dry  up,  and  on  the  latter  the  stalk  becomes  so  rank,  that 
it  breaks  down.  This  latter  defect  can  be  remedied  by 
topping.  '  Sugar-loaf  is  best  upon  new  ground,  where 
the  soil  is  rich. and  the  growth  sweet  gum.  I  have  made 
a  bale  and  a  quarter  to  the  acre  the  first  year  the  land  was 
cleared.  The  '  Hundred  Seed '  still  retains  its  popularity, 
as  suitable  for  rich,  fresh  land." 

As  an  instance  of  the  manner  in  which  many  somewhat 
celebrated  varieties  have  originated,  the  following  circum- 
stance is  subjoined.  In  1847,  Colonel  II.  W.  Vick, 
who  had  been .  for  fifteen  or  twenty  years  selecting  and 
improving  his  seed,  made  up  eight  small  parcels  of  cotton 
in  the  seed,  and  sent  them  to  Mr.  Phillips,  requesting  his 
examination  and  the  results  of  his  experimenting.  One 
of  these  packages  was  marked  "  Belle  Creole,"  not  known 
at  all  as  "a  distinct  variety,  but  resembling  the  "Silk." 
Mr.  Phillips  planted  these  eight  varieties  in  the  spring, 
cultivated  and  picked  them  with  his  own  hands,  taking 
special  care  in  the  selection  of  the  finest  bolls  on  each 
plant.  From  the  growth  of  the  seventh  package  he 
selected  a  small  number  of  the  finest  bolls,  and  sent  some 
to  Governor  Hammond,  of  South  Carolina,  and  another 
package  to  J.  V.  Jones,  a  planter  in  Georgia,  who  was 
quite  well  known  as  an  agricultural  writer  under  the  sig- 
nature of  "  Jethro."  Out  of  compliment  to  Mr.  Jones 
this  was  called  the  "  Jethro  "  seed,  and  is  regarded  as  a 


COTTON   CULTURE.  2 

very  choice  variety,  and  was  produced,  as  we  learn,  from 
Mr.  Phillips,  by  Colonel  Yick  of  Yicksburg,  who  selected 
year  after  year  those  plants  which  yielded  the  softest  and 
the  finest  cotton,  sent  a  package  to  a  neighboring  planter 
who  cultivated  the  seed  carefully,  and  sent  a  package  of 
his  seed  to  Georgia,  where  it  attained  celebrity  for  the 
fineness  and  softness  of  the  staple. 

Some  of  the  varieties  of  cotton  seed  were  wonderfully 
prized  when  first  introduced,  and  commanded  sums  that 
seem  almost  fabulous.  For  instance,  the  "  Banana,"  a  seed 
that  became  famous  about  twenty  years  ago,  at  first  sold 
for  a  hundred  dollars  a  bushel.  It  was  introduced  by  a 
planter  in  Warren  Bounty,  Mississippi,  near  Yicksburg, 
and  the  production  was  supposed  to  exceed  anything  that 
had  before  been  known.  It  was  almost  identical  with  the 
"Hogan"  seed,  and  some  paid  ten  cenfs  apiece  for 
"  Hogan  "  seeds.  Yet,  for  some  reason,  probably  the  de- 
terioration natural  to  a  careless  selection  of  seed,  it  was 
not  three  years  before  "  Banana  "  could  have  been  bought 
for  fifty  cents  a  bushel.  The  same  is  true  of  the  "  Masto- 
don," which  came  in  repute  about  the  same  time.  Mr. 
Ably,  a  very  sensible  and  ingenious  planter,  near  Yazoo 
City,  and  Mr.  D.  F.  Miller,  of  Concordia  Parish,  Louisi- 
ana, took  prizes  on  "Mastodon"  cotton ;  and  as  the  lint  in 
this  variety  clings  to  the  seed  a  little  more  firmly  than  the 
others,  an  improvement,  or  a  modification  rather,  of  the 
ordinary  gin,  was  made  to  suit  it.  And  yet,  a  few  years 
after,  a  writer  in  the  Cultivator,  from  Cayuga,  Mississippi, 
speaks  as  follows  of  this  famous  variety  : 

"  If  you  recollect,  the  '  Mastodon '  was  introduced  some 
four  or  five  years  since,  and  I  remember  when  there  was 
not  sufficient  seed  in  the  neighborhood  to  supply  the  de- 
mand at  five  dollars  per  bushel.  I  am  acquainted  with 
the  gentleman  who  first  planted  and  sold  the  seed  in  this 
State,  and  it  is  generally  believed  that  his  profit  was  much 
greater  from  the  sale  of  the  *  Mastodon '  seed,  than  the 


126  COTTOX    CULTURE. 

proceeds  of  his  entire  crop  for  two  years ;  but  at  this 
time  there  is  not  a  seed  of  it  growing,  to  my  knowledge." 

Some  varieties,  as  the  "Brown"  and  the  "Multiboll," 
and  the  u  Okra,"  under  favorable  circumstances,  produce 
a  plant  that  is  very  prolific  in  bolls,  sometimes  throwing 
out  twice  as  many  as  a  common  seed.  But  an  objection 
is  very  properly  made  to  them,  that  the  cotton  hangs 
loosely  from  the  open  boll,  so  that,  if  a  stormy  day  occurs 
in  the  latter  part  of  October,  or  early  in  November,  when 
the  fields  are  the  whitest,  a  large  part  of  the  open  cotton 
is  blown  out  and  wasted.  This  is  probably  more  than  an 
offset  to  the  greater  facility  of  picking. 

As  a  summary  of  the  whole  matter  of  varieties  in  cot- 
ton seed,  a  careful  perusal  of  nearly  every  thing  that  has 
been  written  upon  the  subject,  together  with  the  verbal 
testimony  of  a  large  number  of  excellent  planters,  has 
brought  me  to  the  following  conclusions : 

I. — Every  cotton  grower,  who  cultivates  a  good  cotton 
soil  in  the  best  part  of  the  cotton  belt,  (the  region  be- 
tween thirty-two  and  thirty-three  north  latitude,)  can,  in 
a  few  years,  produce  a  choice  variety  of  cotton  seed  by 
taking  pains  with  any  of  the  ordinary  seed. 

II. — This  improvement  is  brought  about  by  carefully 
selecting  the  best  bolls  that  open  before  frost,  regard  be- 
ing had  sometimes  to  the  number  of  bolls  upon  the  plant, 
and  sometimes  to  the  fineness  and  softness  of  the  staple. 
By  selecting  the  former,  he  may  produce  a  seed  famous 
for  its  productiveness.  By  taking  the  latter,  the  variety 
may  have  a  high  repute  for  the  superior  quality  of  the 
lint.  After  ginning,  the  seed  is  sorted  over,  and  well  cared 
for  until  the  planting  time  of  another  year. 

III. — All  these  improved  varieties  are  quite  certain  to 
"  play  out "  in  a  few  years,  unless  the  same  pains  are  taken 
to  sustain  the  character  of  the  seed  that  were  used  to  pro- 
duce it.  In  other  words,  no  variety  will  remain  superior 
unless  the  seed  cotton  is  selected  with  care. 


COTTOX    CULTURE.  127 

IV. — It  always  pays  to  be  particular  in  collecting  and 
caring  for  the  seed  cotton  of  a  place.  The  practical  dif- 
ference between  good  seed  and  bad,  is  this:  By  having 
seed  that  produces  a  superior  quality  of  cotton,  the  planter 
may  obtain  from  one  to  five  cents  more  a  pound  for  his 
crop.  By  planting  seeds  remarkable  for  the  largeness  of 
their  yield,  he  may  realize  an  increase  of  from  one  hundred 
to  three  hundred  pounds  more  of  ginned  cotton  to  the 
acre. 

V. — An  enterprising,  and  pains-taking  cotton  grower, 
by  developing  a  superior  quality  of  seed,  and  securing  for 
it  a  reputation,  may  make  as  much  from  the  sale  of  his 
seed,  as  lie  does  from  that  of  his  ginned  cotton, — it  being 
understood,  of  course,  that  he  is  surrounded  by  planters 
who,  being  careless  with  respect  to  their  own  seed  cotton, 
are  always  desirous  to  obtain  improved  varieties. 

SEA    ISLAND    COTTON. 

Edisto  Island,  south  of  Charleston,  is  the  most  favorable 
part  of  the  United  States,  vin  respect  to  both  soil  and 
climate,  for  the  production  of  "  Sea  Island  Cotton."  It 
has  a  sandy  soil,  but  little  above  tide,  which,  penetrating 
the  island  through  numerous  small  channels,  gives  irreg- 
ular shape  to  the  plantations,  but  permits  boats  to  come 
to  almost  every  man's  door.  The  mud  from  salt  marshes 
is  much  used  as  manure,  and  is  differently  applied,  accord- 
ing to  the  taste  and  judgment  of  various  planters.  As 
the  soil  is  generally  very  light,  it  is  unproductive,  unless 
manure  is  used ;  and  even  with  manure  the  average  yield 
of  Sea  Island  cotton  is  not  much  more  than  half  the  av- 
erage of  Upland  cotton.  A  sea-board  planter,  writing 
from  Liberty  County,  Georgia,  in  1848,  says  that  in  eight- 
een years  his  crops  have  averaged  a  fraction  over  three 
acres  per  hand,  the  yield  one  hundred  and  thirty-seven 
pounds  per  acre,  and  the  net  proceeds  per  hand,  eighty- 


128  COTTON    CULTURE. 

three  dollars.  During  that  period,  the  highest  average 
price  paid  was  thirty-seven  and  a  half  cents  per  pound ; 
the  lowest,  fourteen  cents. 

The  Sea  Island  cotton  is  the  product  of  a  plant  that 
seems  to  have  been  first  carried  to  the  Bahama  Islands 
from  the  Island  of  Anguilla,  whither  it  is  "believed  to  have 
been  transported  from  Persia,  and  was  introduced  and 
cultivated  upon  the  islands  along  the  coast  of  Georgia, 
immediately  after  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War. 
The  staple  or  filament  of  Sea  Island  cotton  is  exceedingly 
long,  silken,  and  delicate.  To  pay  as  well  as  the  short 
staple,  or  Upland  cotton,  the  Sea  Island  must  sell  for 
twice  as  much  per  pound.  Since  the  year  1850,  the  price 
has  greatly  advanced,  so  that  Sea  Island  has,  much  of  the 
time,  commanded  three  and  four  times  as  much  per  pound 
as  the  ordinary  staple. 

About  ten  years  ago,  samples  of  Sea  Island  cotton, 
grown  on  Edisto  Island,  together  with  a  number  of  speci- 
mens of  the  soil,  were  taken  to  Baltimore,  and  carefully 
examined  and  analyzed  by  the  State  chemist.  The 
analysis  of  the  seed  and  wool-  gave  results  very  similar  to 
the  analysis  of  Upland  cotton,  given  in  the  first  part  of 
Chapter  Third. 

It  may  be  well,  however,  to  subjoin  a  few  of  the  results 
obtained  by  the  Baltimore  analysis.  Taking  two  hundred 
pounds  as  the  average  growth  of  Sea  Island  cotton  upon 
an  acre,  and  adding  the  six  hundred  pounds  removed  in 
seed,  it  was  found  that,  reducing  these  eight  hundred 
pounds  to  ashes,  and  ascertaining  the  composition  of  the 
ash,  an  ordinary  crop  removes  each  year  from  an  acre  a 
little  more  than  twenty-six  and  a  half  pounds  of  chemical 
salts,  of  which  a  little  more  than  nine  pounds,  or  about 
one-third,  is  potash,  nearly  nine  pounds  is  phosphoric  acid, 
of  sulphuric  acid  a  little  more  than  a  pound,  three  and  a 
half  of  magnesia,  and  of  lime  nearly  two  pounds.  The 
principal  difference  between  this  and  Upland  cotton  is  in 


COTTON   CULTURE.  129 

a  substitution  of  magnesia  for  lime.  The  amount  of  pot- 
ash is  very  nearly  the  same  in  both  varieties.  The  Sea 
Island  has  a  little  more  phosphoric  acid  than  the  other, 
and  less  lime.  The  soil  upon  which  the  two  hundred 
pounds  of  cotton,  thus  analyzed,  was  raised,  was  found  to 
be  composed,  as  to  its  bulk,  of  nine-tenths  of  fine  alluvial 
sand,  and  one-tenth  of  a  cement,  consisting  of  sand,  perox- 
ide of  iron,  clay,  lime,  magnesia,  and  humus. 

An  examination  of  the  cement,  or  that  part  of  the  soil 
which  is  not  entirely  sand,  shows  that  it  is  composed  very 
largely  of  a  combination  of  sand  and  peroxide  of  iron,  a 
considerable  amount  of  magnesia,  and  a  small  quantity  of 
lime.  On  account  of  the  deficiency  of  lime,  the  cotton 
plants  are  led  to  appropriate  more  abundantly  magnesia, 
a  substance  which,  in  its  chemical  character  and  proper- 
ties, much  resembles  lime,  and  which,  therefore,  is  capa- 
ble of  taking  its  place  to  some  extent. 

As  to  the  directly  nourishing  properties  of  the  soil,  the 
analysis  shows,  that  in  the  three  thousand  tons  which 
constitute  the  surface  for  the  depth  of  one  foot  over  an 
acre,  there  is  less  than  fifteen  pounds  of  phosphoric  acid. 
As  one  two-hundred  pound  crop  consumes  nearly  nine 
pounds  of  phosphoric  acid,  it  follows  that,  with  no  ma- 
nure, the  second  crop,  planted  on  the  same  soil,  would 
find  a  little  more  than  half  enough  phosphorus  for  its 
proper  growth. 

In  the  same  soil,  there  was  found  less  than  twenty 
pounds  of  potash,  so  that,  as  a  two-hundred  pound  crop 
consumes  over  nine  pounds_of  this  chemical  salt,  the  third 
successive  crop,  without  manure,  would  find  little  or  no 
potash  to  feed  upon.  The  result  of  this  chemical  exami- 
nation of  the  Sea  Island  soil  is,  that  it  must  be  kept  up  by 
the  use  of  manures  rich  in  the  phosphates,  rich  in  potash, 
and  having  a  considerable  amount  of  sulphuric  acid.  A 
dressing,  composed  of  rotten  cotton  seed,  mixed  with  the 
ordure  of  domestic  animals,  if  used  in  sufficient  quantities, 
6* 


130  COTTON    CULTURE. 

would  meet  this  deficiency ;  and  of  manures,  not  directly 
the  product  of  the  soil,  the  best  are  Peruvian  guano,  bone 
dust,  dissolved  in  sulphuric  acid,  and  the  various  refuse 
of  manufactories,  rich  in  potash. 

The  Sea  Island  cotton  is.  planted  from  March  twentieth 
to  April  tenth,  upon  high  beds,  five  feet  apart  one  way, 
by  from  eight  to  twenty-four  inches  the  other,  according 
to  the  richness  of  the  soil.  It  is  cultivated  in  very  much 
the  same  manner  as  Upland,  except  that  more  reliance  is 
placed  upon  the  hoe  and  less  upon  the  plow.  Much  more 
pains  is  taken  in  picking,  ginning,  and  marketing  the  Sea 
Island  cotton,  than  with  the  ordinary  Upland.  In  gath- 
ering it  from  the  field,  great  care  is  exercised  to  keep  it 
free  of  trash  and  all  stains.  It  is  transferred  at  once  to 
the  drying  scaffold,  where  it  is  sorted  over  before  packing 
away  in  the  cotton  house.  The  ginning  is  done  almost 
entirely  in  dry  weather,  when  the  cotton  is  again  sunned 
and  picked  over ;  that  which  is  picked  Jate  in  the  season, 
or  after  a  rain,  is  run  through  the  trasher,  which  whips  the 
locks  against  pegs  or  bars,  and  frees  them  from  sand  and 
loose  dirt. 

It  then  goes  to  the  gins,  where  the  seeds  are  separated 
from  the  wool.  It  is  somewhat  remarkable  that  no  prac- 
tical improvement  has  yet  been  made  upon  the  rude  in- 
vention which  was  used  for  this  purpose  almost  a  century 
ago.  Neither  the  Whitney  gin,  nor  any  of  its  modifica- 
tions or  improvements,  are  found  to  be  effectual  in  sepa- 
rating the  lint  of  Sea  Island  cotton  from  the  seed,  without 
cutting  or  tangling  it.  The  form  of  this  ginning  instru- 
ment is  extremely  simple,  consisting  of  nothing  more  than 
a  treadle  and  a  couple  of  small  iron  fly-wheels,  for  the 
purpose  of  producing  the  rapid  and  steady  revolution  of 
two  wooden  rollers,  about  a  foot  long,  and  about  an  inch 
in  diameter.  These  rollers  wear  out  very  rapidly,  and  are 
renewed  almost  daily.  It  is  probable  that  a  pair  of  gutta 


COTTON    CULTURE.  131 

peroha  rollers,  of  about  the  size  of  those  used  in  clothes 
wringers,  might  be  found  effective  and  durable. 

.V  Mr.  L.  S.  Chichester  has  produced  a  machine  which 
is  said  to  be  entirely  successful  in  its  operation  on  Sea 
Island  cotton.  The  lint  passes  between  two  rollers,  one 
fluted,  made  of  polished  steel,  an  inch  and  a  quarter  in 
diameter ;  the  other  of  vulcanized  rubber,  twice  as  large, 
while  a  plate  of  iron,  vibrating  in  front  of  the  rollers,  rips 
out  the  seeds  as  the  cotton  is  drawn  through.  It  is  stated 
that  it  cleans  three  hundred  pounds  a  day  without  crush- 
ing any  of  the  seed. 

The  machine,  in  common  use,  is  set  in  motion  by  the 
foot  of  the  operator  acting  upon  the  treadle,  and  the  cot- 
ton is  fed  between  the  rollers  by  hand,  the  lint  passing 
through,  and  the  seeds  being  retained.  The  operation  is 
slow,  as  compared  with  the  process  of  Whitney's  gin. 
Thirty  or  forty  pounds  a  day  is  the  extent  that  can  be 
ginned  on  one  of  these  little  machines,  whereas  a  good 
eighty-saw  Whitney  gin  will,  in  the  same  time,  turn  off 
thirty-two  hundred  pounds.  "No  other  satisfactory  mode 
of  propelling  these  gins  has  ever  been  discovered,  though 
much  money  and  ingenuity  have  been  employed  in  the 
endeavor  to  apply  horse  and  steam  power  to  the  operation 
of  ginning  Sea  Island  cotton. 

From  the  gins  the  cotton  passes  to  the  mote-table, 
where  a  careful  and  experienced  operative  examines  it 
minutely,  picking  out  every  little  mote  and  stained  lock. 
The  operation  can  proceed  as  fast  as  two  gins  can  supply 
the  material.  From  the  mote-table  it  goes  through  the 
hands  of  a  general  superintendent,  and  then  to  the  packer. 

This  kind  of  cotton  is  seldom  pressed  in  the  ordinary 
square  bale,  the  purchasers  preferring  that  packed  by 
hand.  The  operation  of  hand-packing,  as  it  is  called,  is 
performed  by  serving  the  open  end  of  a  strong  bag  over  a 
hoop,  and  suspending  it  through  a  hole  in  the  floor.  The 
cotton  is  thrown  into  the  bag,  and  the  packer  stands  with 


132  COTTOX  CULTURE. 

a  wooden  or  iron  pestle,  and  rams  down  each  successive 
layer  or  parcel  of  lint  as  it  comes  from  the  gin-room.  The 
bale  of  Sea  Island  cotton  is  fifty  or  a  hundred  pounds  less 
than  the  Upland  bale. 

This  staple  is  never  manufactured  into  the  coarser  mus- 
lins, but  is  used  for  the  most  delicate  fabrics,  such  as  cot- 
ton cambric  and  jaconet.  It  is  extensively  used  in  the 
manufacture  of  the  finest  qualities  of  cotton  thread,  and 
it  is  also  consumed  in  large  quantities  by  silk  manufac- 
turers, the  fine,  soft,  and  glossy  fibre  rendering  it  an 
adulteration  of  the  thread  of  the  silk-worm  difficult  to  be 
detected. 

The  seed  of  the  Sea  Island  cotton,  which  came  origi- 
nally from  the  Bahama  Islands,  and  was  known  as  the 
Anguilla  cotton,  was  first  cultivated  by  Josiah  Tatnall, 
and  Nicholas  Turnbull,  on  Skidaway  Island,  near  Savan- 
nah, and  subsequently  on  St.  Simon's  Island,  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Altamana,  and  on  Jekyl  Island. 

The  largest  crop  ever  raised  in  this  country  was  in 
1827,  when  the  amount  produced  was  nearly  fifty  thous- 
and bales.  Of  late  years,  that  is,  since  1850,  the  annual 
production  has  been  about  thirty  thousand  bales  annually. 
The  Sea  Islands  proper,  Eclisto,  Saint  Simon's,  Jekyl,  Skid- 
away,  and  others,  that  line  the  coast  of  South  Carolina, 
Georgia,  and  Eastern  Florida,  procluce  the  finest  quality. 
When  the  average  price  of  "  long  staple "  is  fifty  cents 
per  pound,  the  cotton  from  many  plantations  on  these 
islands  will  command  sixty  and  seventy  cents  a  pound. 
That  raised  on  the  lower  bottoms  of  the  Santee  is  next  in 
value,  while  the  Florida  cottons  are  generally  a  little  in- 
ferior. 

From  1830  to  1850,  the  average  price  of  Sea  Island  was 
a  little  less  than  twenty-five  cents  a  pound.  Since  1850  its 
price  has  nearly  doubled,  the  average  for  a  number  of 
years  being  forty-five,  forty-eight,  and  fifty  cents. 


COTTON    CULTURE  133 

CHAPTER      Y. 

HOW  TO  REALIZE  THE  MOST  FROM  A  CROP ;    SUGGESTIONS 

AS  TO  THE  UNION  OF  THE  GROWING  OF  COTTON  WITH 

ITS  MANUFACTURE  INTO  TARNS  AND  FABRICS. 

The  most  that  can  be  expected,  or  rationally  proposed 
for  the  South,  in  the  present  generation,  is  a  manufactur- 
ing system  by  which  she  may  be  able  to  produce  the 
greater  part  of  the  plainer  and  coarser  fabrics  necessary 
for  her  consumption.  It  is  practicable  for  the  cotton- 
growing  communities  to  produce  on  the  spot,  and  within 
sight  of  the  fields  where  the  staple  grows,  their  own  Low- 
ells and  Osnaburgs,  their  own  Linseys,  and  enough  coarse 
bagging-cloth  to  make  neat  and  snug  wrappings  for  that 
part  of  the  crop  which  is  exported. 

Instead  of  the  present  system,  where  every  planter  who 
makes  upwards  of  twenty  bales  considers  it  necessary  to 
have  a  gin,  gin-house,  cotton-sheds,  and  packing  screw  of 
his  own,  let  the  planting  communities  unite  in  the  erection 
and  equipment  of  a  large  neighborhood  factory,  with  ar- 
rangements and  conveniences  for  manipulating  the  entire 
crop  raised  within,  say,  six  miles  of  the  spot  of  its  produc- 
tion, and  making  the  most  of  it  in  every  sense  of  the 
word.  By  estimating  the  present  and  prospective  density 
of  the  population,  the  amount  of  the  coarser  cotton  fabrics 
demanded  for  the  yearly  consumption  of  the  community 
can  readily  be  estimated. 

In  many  parts  of  the  cotton  States,  a  neighborhood,  or 
community,  living  within  about  five  miles  of  a  common 
centre,  produces,  in  a  favorable  year,  five  thousand  bales 
of  cotton.  The  number  of  persons  of  all  ages  and  both. 
sexes,  in  such  a  community,  is  about  fifteen  hundred.  I 
speak  now  of  a  strictly  agricultural  township  where  cotton 
growing  is  the  business,  everything  else  being  subordinate 
and  auxiliary  to  this  principal  occupation.  The  average 


134  COTTON    CULTURE. 

of  the  number  of  bales  ginned  and  pressed  at  each  gin- 
house,  is  not  over  two  hundred,  and  in  a  great  many 
neighborhoods  much  less  than  that;  and  the  average  cost 
of  these  establishments  for  ginning  and  baling  the  crop 
may  be  put  at  five  thousand  dollars,  many  steam-gins 
costing  twenty  and  thirty  thousand,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  many  old-fashioned  gin-sheds  and  old  style  wooden 
screws  not  being  worth  more  than  five  hundred  dollars. 
But,  taking  five  thousand  as  a  reasonable  average,  there 
is,  in  such  a  community,  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  thous- 
and dollars  laid  out  in  appliances  for  ginning  and  baling. 

Now,  the  plan  here  proposed  is  that,  instead  of  having 
this  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  distributed 
over  so  large  an  area  and  invested  in  gins  and  the  ma- 
chinery that  accompanies  them,  let  the  neighborhood  unite 
in  putting  up  a  factory  that  will  gin  out  this  whole  crop, 
bale  up  in  a  small  compact  manner,  with  excellent  bagging 
and  strong  varnished  hoops,  over  four-fifths  of  the  crop 
raised,  and  which  shall  also  have  arrangements  for  spin- 
ning and  weaving  sixty  thousand  yards  of  Lowells,  Osna- 
burgs,  and  strong  muslins,  annually,  and  twenty  thousand 
yards  of  Linseys. 

The  number  of  spindles  and  looms  necessary  to  produce 
these  eighty  thousand  yards  of  cloth  can  easily  be  esti- 
mated, and  procured  without  difficulty.  The  number 
should  be  no  more  than  sufficient  to  produce  this  amount 
of  cloth  in  the  course  of  a  year.  If  a  larger  number  were 
put  up,  the  building  might  need  to  be  much  stronger  and 
higher  than  would  otherwise  be  required,  and  there  would 
be  no  certainty  that  the  extra  looms  and  spindles  might 
not  stand  idle  for  a  considerable  part  of  the  time. 

The  subjoined  drawing  is  a  ground  plan  of  a  cotton 
factory  of  this  description,  designed  for  the  accommoda- 
tion of  a  community  that  produces  five  thousand  bales 
annually. 


COTTON   CULTURE. 


135 


W  W  W  TF,  represents  a  substantial  wall,  or  fence, 
that  surrounds  the  factory.  It  is  two  hundred  feet  each 
way.  JET,  H^  are  gate-ways.  The  enclosures,  marked  a, 
a,  a,  are  cotton-sheds,  or  cribs,  of  sizes  varying  according 

W  D  D 


1 

1 

11 

K 

K 

K    „ 

1 

e         1 

&         1 

|i 

K 

1 

E            K 

1 

i1 

i 

1 

i 

1 

PAC.KING 
SCREW.            ' 

PRESS 


rvT-r-T «""] 


Fig.  20. — PLAN  OF  COTTON  FACTORY  AND  INCLOSUKB. 

to  the  number  of  bales  which  the  different  planters  in  the 
vicinage  commonly  produce.  These  sheds,  or  cribs,  are 
substantially  covered,  the  roofs  extending  each  way  from 
the  ridge-pole  over  the  walls,  which  are  open,  of  lattice 
work,  for  the  free  admission  of  air.  The  marks,  m  m  m 
m,  in  the  fence,  or  wall,  are  small  openings,  say  4  ft.  x  4 
ft.,  for  the  purpose  of  unloading  the  wagons  without  driv- 
ing into  the  yard.  S  is  a  large,  well  built,  scaffold,  slop- 
ing toward  the  south,  upon  which  the  cotton,  when  taken 
from  the  sheds,  is  spread,  to  be  thoroughly  sunned  before 
being  ginned.  A  and  A  represent  two  endless  aprons,  or 


136  COTTOX    CULTUEE. 

feeders,  which  move  slowly  from  the  platform  or  scaffold 
to  a  receptacle  above  the  gin-stands,  from  which  the  cot- 
ton is  fed  to  the  gins.  6r  represents  the  ginning-room, 
where  four  or  five  gin-stands  are  placed  side  by  side,  pro- 
pelled by  an  engine  that  is  located  directly  underneath. 
C  represents  a  small  apron  which  conveys  the  cotton  seed 
from  beneath  the  gin-stands  to  0,  an  oil-mill,  in  immedi- 
ate connection  with  the  spinning,  weaving,  and  ginning- 
mill,  where  are  all  the  necessary  appliances  for  extract- 
ing the  oil  from  the  seeds,  pressing,  clarifying,  and  barrel- 
ing it.  Immediately  in  the  rear  of  6r,  the  gin-room,  is  L, 
the  lint-room,  into  which  the  cotton  passes  directly  from 
the  gins.  Underneath  the  lint-room  is  a  powerful  press 
and  packing-box,  capable  of  compressing  four  hundred 
pounds  of  lint  cotton  into  a  space  a  little  larger  than 
twenty-seven  cubic  feet,  or  a  cubic  yard. 

A  press,  capable  of  doing  this,  was  patented  in  1860, 
by  P.  G.  Gardner,  and  is  more  fully  described  in  the  first 
part  of  this  Treatise.  It  is  twelve  feet  in  hight,  very 
strongly  made,  very  hard  to  break  or  put  out  of  order. 
It  can  be  worked  by  hand,  horse,  or  steam  power,  according 
as  rapidity  and  economy  of  human  strength  is  desired, 
and  will  compress  four  hundred  pounds  of  cotton  within 
the  space  of  a  cubic  yard. 

Of  course,  bales  made  in  such  a  press  and  well  bound 
with  iron  hoops  would  require  no  further  compression  at 
shipping  ports,  and  might  be  carried  from  the  remotest 
plantations  to  Boston,  or  to  Liverpool,  without  losing  half 
a  pound  in  waste. 

D  and  D  are  large  double  doors  on  rollers,  at  the  rear, 
where  the  floor  is  on  a  level  with  the  top  of  a  wagon  bed, 
so  that  the  bales,  or  the  manufactured  cloths,  can  be 
loaded  with  the  greatest  ease  at  one  door,  and  the  barrels 
of  cotton  seed  oil  at  the  other.  The  openings,  KK KK, 
are  windows. 

The  first  story  or  basement  of  the  part  marked  B  and 


COTTON    CULTURE.  137 

E,  is  occupied  by  the  engine,  whicli  is  tinder  the  gin-room, 
and  by  the  packing  screw ;  and  the  rear  portion,  with 
bales  ready  for  market.  F  F  are  the  boiler  and  smoke 
stack.  Directly  above  it,  the  second  story  commences  at 
the  front  with  the  ginning-room,  back  of  which  is  the  lint- 
room,  and  in  the  rear  of  that  the  carding  and  spinning- 
room.  The  third  story  is  devoted  to  weaving,  and  also 
to  the  carding  and  spinning  of  a  small  amount  of  wool, 
sufficient  to  make  twenty  thousand  yards  of  linsey-wool- 
sey in  the  course  of  the  year,  enough  to  supply  the  neigh- 
borhood with  all  the  plain  woolen  clothing  they  require. 
In  the  attic,  or  fourth  story,  there  are  arrangements  for 
spinning  and  weaving  into  coarse  bagging  all  the  very 
much  stained  and  inferior  cotton  which  is  brought  to  the 
factory. 

With  cotton  at  its  present  prices,  (1867),  considerably 
over  twenty-five  cents  a  pound,  this  would  not  be  advisa- 
ble ;  but  eventually,  when  cotton  falls,  as  it  may,  to  about 
ten  cents  a  pound,  and  the  lowest  grades  to  six  and  seven 
cents,  it  would  be  true  policy  for  each  neighborhood  to 
make  its  own  bagging.  The  article  thus  manufactured 
from  the  refuse  and  trash  would  be  much  closer  and 
stronger  than  the  ordinary  Kentucky  hemp  Bagging  in 
use,  and  beside,  the  superior  protection  afforded  to  the 
bales  would  be  valuable  for  various  purposes  after  it  had 
reached  the  end  of  its  journey  and  been  stripped  from 
the  package. 

There  is  space  in  the  gin-room  for  four  large  gins  of 
eighty  saws  each,  which,  running  steadily,  would  turn  off" 
forty  bales  per  day,  and  thus  the  entire  crop  of  the  neigh- 
borhood or  township,  amounting  to  five  thousand  bales, 
could  be  ginned  out,  packed,  hooped,  riveted,  and  branded, 
between  the  first  of  September,  when  the  gins  begin  to 
run  on  the  new  crop,  and  the  first  of  January. 

What  now  are  the  advantages  of  a  system  like  the  one 
here  proposed  ?  In  the  first  place,  the  planter  needs  no 


138  COTTON    CULTURE. 

gin  or  gin-house,  and  only  very  cheap  cotton-sheds  for  the 
temporary  storing  of  a  part  of  his  crop,  it  being  hauled 
and  stored  in  his  shed  at  the  factory,  of  which  he  himself, 
if  he  chooses,  can  carry  the  key.  In  doing  so  large  an 
amount  of  ginning,  it  would,  of  course,  be  expected  that 
the  machines  would  be  of  the  best  construction,  and  the 
operator,  a  person  skilled  in  cotton  and  in  machinery,  so 
that  the  ginning  would  be  done  in  the  very  best  manner, 
the  lint  thoroughly  removed  from  the  seed,  and  not  torn, 
or  cut,  or  matted,  or  tangled  by  the  improper  action  of 
the  saws. 

The  appliances  for  packing  and  compression  are  also  of 
the  very  best  sort,  the  press  being  made  principally  of 
iron,  and  worked  by  steam  power,  making  the  bales  very 
nearly,  if  not  precisely,  cubical  in  form,  and  varying  not 
five  pounds  either  way  from  four  hundred  each.  They 
would  be  banded  with  substantial  iron  hoops,  an  inch  or 
more  wide,  and  prepared  by  being  varnished,  while  hot, 
with  coal  tar.  In  the  engine  house,  close  by,  is  a  black- 
smith's forge,  where  the  rivets  are  easily  made  and  insert- 
ed while  hot,  battered  down,  or  clenched  in  the  most 
thorough  manner.  It  would  be  expected  also  that  the 
cotton  would  be  sorted  or  graded  while  passing  through  the 
gin,  which  is,  by  far,  the  best  time  for  doing  it ;  and,  as 
the  planter's  name  or  initials  are  branded  upon  the  bale, 
the  quality  or  grade  could  be  put  on  at  the  same  time. 
Honesty  and  thoroughness  in  this  would  soon  work  a  most 
desirable  change  in  the  whole  system  of  cotton  marketing, 
There  need  be  no  sampling  done,  but  the  cotton  ought  to 
be  sold  according  to  the  brand  found  upon  it,  so  that  the 
package  would  be  entirely  unbroken  and  undisturbed  from 
the  moment  it  was  riveted  in  the  gin-house,  to  the  time 
the  hoops  are  cut  off  in  the  distant  cotton  mill.  The 
enormous  and  exorbitant  charges  which  are  made  upon 
the  crop  at  the  various  shipping  ports,  for  drayage, 
storage,  compression,  re-packing,  and  insurances,  would, 


COTTON   CULTUEE.  139 

in   this    manner,  be   very   much   reduced,   if   not   quite 
abolished. 

After  the  principal  part  of  the  crop  has  been  thus  per- 
fectly prepared  for  the  market  and  shipped,  it  is  proposed 
to  throw  the  power  of  the  engine  for  the  remainder  of  the 
year  upon  the  machinery  in  the  second  and  third  stories. 
During  the  months  of  January,  February,  March,  and 
April,  the  spindles  and  looms  are  to  be  kept  running  upon 
the  sixty  thousand  yards  of  Lowells  and  Osnaburgs, 
which  are  required  for  neighborhood  consumption. 

During  the  latter  part  of  the  summer,  the  machinery  is 
employed  in  making  up  twenty  thousand  yards  of  Linseys, 
which  are  required  for  the  winter  wear  of  the  population 
represented  in  such  a  factory ;  and,  as  before  stated,  the 
worst  of  the  cotton,  say  fifty  bales  in  all,  could  be,  during 
the  same  time,  spun  and  woven  into  bagging. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  that  the  above  plan  of  having 
for  every  planting  neighborhood,  a  ginning  establishment 
capable  of  preparing  nine-tenths  of  the  crop  for  market 
in  the  most  thorough  manner,  manufacturing  the  remain- 
ing tenth  into  all  the  cotton  and  linsey  clothing  required 
by  such  a  community,  and  converting  two-thirds  of  the 
seed  into  oil,  will  be  found  practicable,  or  even  desirable, 
everywhere.  In  some  regions,  there  would  arise  a  diffi- 
culty as  to  fuel.  In  others,  water  power  would  be  found 
cheapest,  and  in  that  case  it  might  be  best  to  enlarge  the 
working  capacity  of  the  factory,  and  send  many  thousand 
yards  of  sheetings,  muslins,  and  calicoes,  annually  to  mar- 
ket. In  others,  the  prime  objection  would  be,  that  a  good 
gin-house  is  now  standing  on  every  plantation,  and  there 
would  be  no  economy  in  hauling  the  cotton  in  the  seed 
five  miles,  when  the  facilities  for  ginning  it  at  home  are 
equally  good.  But  with  regard  to  those  parts  where 
the  gin-houses  have  been  destroyed  in  the  late  war,  or 
where  they  are  old  and  ill  arranged ;  or  in  freshly  opened 


140  COTTON   CULTURE. 

sections,  where  the  better  plan  can  be  adopted  at  the  first, 
some  such  arrangement  is  earnestly  recommended. 

The  plan  of  acting  by  association  in  the  ginning 
and  manufacture  of  plain  fabrics  from  the  crop  of  each 
neighborhood,  will  be  found  especially  suited  to  the  small 
producer,  the  farmer,  who,  by  his  own  labor  and  that  of 
liis  children,  plants  and  harvests  ten  or  fifteen  bales  of 
cotton  each  year.  It  enables  him  to  enter  upon  the  busi- 
ness of  cotton  growing  with  as  small  an  outlay  as  will 
enable  him  to  engage  in  the  cultivation  of  potatoes,  or 
onions,  or  hops.  He  needs  no  gin  or  gin-house,  nothing 
but  a  yoke  of  oxen  with  which  to  haul  his  seed  cotton  to 
the  factory,  where  one  bale  will  make  cloth  enough  for  his 
family  for  a  year,  and  the  balance  will  be  ginned,  classed, 
packed,  pressed  and  covered,  hooped  and  branded,  with  as 
much  care  and  thoroughness  as  the  five  hundred  bales  of 
his  opulent  neighbor,  and  thus  goes  to  market  in  a  much 
better  condition  and  with  greater  probabilities  of  com- 
manding a  just  price. 

The  only  difficulty  to  be  overcome  in  order  to  the  es- 
tablishment of  an  effective  and  adequate  system  of  manu- 
factures for  the  South,  is  that  of  population.  Operatives 
are  wanting,  and  not  only  so,  the  class  from  ichich  opera- 
tives are  produced.  The  inhabitants  of  the  cotton  States 
prefer  agriculture  to  any  other  pursuit;  and  while  the 
population  is  so  sparse  that  in  most  neighborhoods  there 
are  thirty  acres  of  land  to  every  person,  no  considerable 
number  of  the  original  stock  will  be,  by  any  social  neces- 
sity, driven  from  the  soil  into  the  mills. 

For  this  reason,  nothing  but  a  large  immigration  of 
people,  not  wedded  to  the  culture  of  the  soil,  will  enable 
the  South  to  do  more  than  manufacture  her  own  cloths. 
The  outlay  and  the  enterprise  to  enable  her  to  do  this, 
are  so  moderate,  that  the  immense  advantages  to  be  se- 
cured by  such  a  course  must  be  forced  upon  the  attention 


COTTOX   CULTURE.  141 

of  all  those  of  her  citizens  who  are  guided  by  a  wise  and 
enlightened  self-interest. 


CHAPTER      VI. 

OF    THE    VALUE    OF     COTTON     AS    A    PLANT,    AND    THE 
USES    TO    WHICH    IT    MAT    BE    APPLIED. 

The  peculiarity  of  cotton  is  that  it  alone,  of  all  products 
•  of  the  vegetable  kingdom,  meets  a  grand  and  universal 
demand  of  the  race.  Flax  is  the  only  other  plant  culti- 
vated to  any  extent  for  the  purpose  of  making  fabrics 
from  its  tissue.  But  in  any  but  a  torrid  zone,  linen  is  un- 
suitable as  an  article  for  general  wearing  apparel. 

The  products  of  the  sheep  and  of  the  silk-worm  are,  in 
some  respects,  superior,  but  they  are  also  more  costly. 
Nothing  begins  to  compete  with  cotton  as  a  material  of 
dress  in  the  union  of  the  three  important  qualities  of  com- 
fort, durability,  and  cheapness. 

When,  as  in  1848,  the  average  price  of  Upland  cotton 
was  six  cents,  or  in  1852,  when  it  was  eight  cents  per 
pound,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  conceive  of  a  cheaper  dress 
than  could  then  be  made  of  cotton.  Seventy-five  cents, 
expended  in  plain  Lowell,  would  clothe  a  laboring  person 
in  neat,  whole  garments,  from  April  to  October.  There 
is  no  probability  that  it  will  ever  fall  to  those  figures 
again.  It  must,  from  the  nature  of  things,  and  in  any 
way  in  which  the  expenses  can  be  calculated,  cost  from 
ten  to  twelve  cents  a  pound  to  grow  cotton  by  any  other 
than  compulsory,  that  is  to  say,  unpaid  labor.  If,  from 
the  extensive  growth  of  cotton  in  India,  Egypt,  and  Brazil, 
the  price  of  Upland  Americans  should  fall  below  ten  cents, 
general  failure  must  overtake  our  cotton  interests.  While 
it  ranges  from  ten  to  fifteen,  prudent  and  economical 


142  COTTON    CULTURE. 

planters,  in  favorable  seasons,  may  make  more  than  a 
living. 

When  its  price  is  above  fifteen  cents,  and  from  that  to 
thirty^skill  and  good  fortune,  with  a  reliable  system  of 
labor,  must  enable  the  cotton  grower  in  the  best  parts  of 
the  cotton  belt  to  grow  rich. 

The  probabilities  are,  that,  as  the  tumults  and  disorders 
incident  to  the  great  civil  war  abate,  the  price  of  cotton 
will  slowly  decline  to  about  fifteen  cents,  where  it  must 
remain,  in  order  to  be  a  profitable  crop  when  raised  by 
free  labor. 

On  this  basis,  the  price  of  a  yard  of  ordinary  shirting 
or  sheeting  will  be  from  eighteen  to  twenty  cents,  accord- 
ing to  fineness,  and  a  fair  calico  or  print  can  be  afforded 
for  about  sixteen  cents.  But,  at  these  prices,  below  which 
there  is  no  likelihood  that  cotton  fabrics  can  fall,  no  mate- 
rial can  at  all  compete  with  this  as  the  universal  dress. 
As  in  food,  the  poor  man  buys  the  largest  amount  of 
palatable  nourishment  when  he  expends  it  in  corn  meal  at 
three  cents  a  pound,  so,  when  he  buys  the  material  for  a 
plain  shirt  for  fifty  cents,  there  is  no  way  of  expending 
half  a  dollar  by  which  he  can  buy  so  much  of  comfort, 
durability  and  neatness,  as  in  buying  three  yards  of  un- 
bleached domestic. 

At  that  rate,  and  in  summer  time,  the  laborer  can  be 
decently  covered  by  expending  two  dollars  in  cotton  cloth. 

The  enormous  demand  for  cheap  cloth  for  the  million 
has  been  so  steady,  ever  since  the  gin  and  the  jenny  were 
invented,  that  only  a  small  amount  of  the  great  staple  has 
ever  been  diverted  to  the  production  of  other  articles  use- 
ful in  the  domestic  arts  and  comforts.  Cotton  has  been 
called  "vegetable  wool,"  and  on  many  accounts  it  answers 
admirably  to  that  description.  It  stands  half  way,  as  it 
were,  between  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdom,  having 
some  of  the  characteristic  advantages  of  each.  Fine,  soft, 
and  glossy,  it  reminds  one  of  silk  in  the  delicacy  of  its 


COTTON   CULTURE.  143 

feel,  and  can  be  blended  with  silk  in  composing  fabrics 
that  appear  little  inferior  to  those  made  exclusively  from 
the  thread  of  cocoons.  When  matted  together,  it  pro- 
duces a  wad  or  padding,  only  a  little  inferior  to  wool,  in 
warmth  and  elasticity.  A  firm  and  lasting  vegetable  fibre, 
it  is  capable,  like  hemp  and  Manilla  grass,  of  being 
wrought  into  cords  and  ropes  which,  for  evenness,  pliabil- 
ity and  strength,  are  equal  to  anything  made  of  those 
materials. 

As  a  material  for  beds,  let  us  compare  it  with  the  arti- 
cles in  general  use,  and  learn,  first  its  qualities,  and  then 
its  relative  cheapness. 

When  made  into  mattresses,  the  objection,  and  the  only 
objection  urged  against  it  is,  that  it  is  liable  to  wad,  or 
bunch  up,  and  thus  present  an  uneven,  and  hence  an  un- 
pleasant surface  to  the  sleeper. 

Ordinary  cotton,  as  it  comes  from  the  gin,  is  liable  to 
this  difficulty.  But  if  the  fibre  is  combed  out  in  long 
rolls,  as  in  the  cotton  batting  extensively  used  for  cover- 
lids, and  laid  in  crosswise,  one  layer  crossing  the  other  at 
right  angles,  until  the  required  thickness  is  attained,  and 
the  mattress  well  tacked  or  stitched  together,  so  as  to  hold 
the  contents  just  where  it  was  laid,  no  such  difficulty 
arises,  and  the  mattress  thus  made  is  equal  to  wool  in 
softness.  It  is  a  little  less  elastic,  but  as  an  ofiset,  this  cot- 
ton being  vegetable,  is  perfectly  sweet  and  wholesome,  free 
from  all  animal  odors,  not  liable  to  become  infested  with 
moths  and  other  vermin,  and  acquires  no  unpleasant  or 
musty  smell,  as  many  other  substances  do  that  are  used 
for  beds,  and  especially  feathers. 

Thirty  pounds  will  make  a  good-sized  double  mattress. 
At  ten  cents  per  pound,  which  is  about  the  cost  of  raising 
cotton  by  free  labor,  the  filling  for  a  cotton  mattress  costs 
three  dollars ;  the  cover  about  two  and  a  half;  the  mak- 
ing-up  a  dollar.  Thus,  for  six  and  a  half  dollars,  the  cot- 
ton grower  can  supply  himself  with  a  bed,  equal  in  dura- 


144  COTTON   CULTURE. 

bility,  sweetness,  and  warmth,  to  wool  or  hair,  and  only  a 
little  inferior  in  elasticity.  But  the  chief  advantage  of 
cotton  for  mattresses  is  in  the  fact  that  so  much  less  ma- 
terial will  suffice  to  give  the  same  degree  of  softness,  as 
compared  with  other  materials.  A  thin  cotton  mattress 
for  a  single  bed,  or  for  a  steamboat  berth,  is  made  to  con- 
tain about  ten  pounds  of  cotton.  This  gives  a  soft,  agree- 
able couch,  easily  removed  for  airing,  and  one-third  cheaper 
than  any  other  suitable  material. 

As  a  material  for  bed  covers  its  use  is  so  extensive  that 
little  need  be  said  by  way  of  recommendation.  For 
warmth  and  -lightness  combined,  nothing  is  superior,  ex- 
cept very  soft  double-rose  blankets,  which  are  a  luxury 
that  only  the  rich  can  indulge  in.  Four  pounds  of  cotton 
batting,  costing  say  twenty-five  cents  a  pound,  stitched 
between  sheets  of  worn  calico,  need  cost  but  little  more 
than  a  dollar,  and  the  amount  of  comfort  thus  obtained 
could  be  found  in  heavy  woolen  blankets  only  at  an  out- 
lay of  from  fifteen  to  twenty  dollars. 

Cotton  can  easily  be  made  into  blankets  which,  for  soft- 
ness and  comfort,  are  only  surpassed  by  the  finest  of 
wool.  Though  not  so  warm  as  the  heavy  rose  or  Macki- 
naw blanket,  they  are  sufficiently  comfortable  for  the  cold- 
est nights  in  the  cotton  region,  where  the  thermometer  re- 
mains but  a  few  nights  in  the  year  below  32°,  and  much 
of  the  time  in  winter  stands  above  40°  for  weeks  together. 

With  a  little  ingenuity  and  skill,  cotton  can  thus  be 
made,  to  a  family  in  moderate  circumstances  in  the  South- 
ern States  of  our  country,  as  great  and  universal  a  bless- 
ing as  the  Bamboo  or  the  Bread-fruit  is  to  the  native  of 
the  tropics. 

All  that  is  required  are  facilities  for  developing  all  its 
useful  qualities,  and  applying  them  to  the  production  of 
the  greatest  amount  of  comfort. 

Let  us,  for  example,  take  a  family  living  on  the  borders 
of  the  cotton  belt  in  Tennessee  or  Western  Texas,  and  on 


COTTON   CULTURE.  145 

the  supposition  that  a  cotton  mill,  such  as  is  described  in  the 
foregoing  chapter,  is  within  ten  miles,  what  can  they  do 
for  themselves  in  one  year  by  raising  as  much  cotton  as 
can  be  used  in  the  family  ?  We  will  also  suppose  that  the 
family  is  poor,  having  been  desolated  by  war,  or  having 
recently  arrived  in  the  country,  and  in  want  of  many  of 
the  ordinary  comforts. 

They  will  get  in  their  crop  in  April,  and  tend  it  during 
the  spring  and  summer. 

Early  in  September  they  begin  to  pick,  and  by  the  first 
of  October  have  between  three  and  four  thousand  pounds 
of  cotton  in  the  seed.  At  the  factory,  this  will  yield  about 
a  thousand  pounds  of  cotton-wool,  and  a  hundred  and 
twenty  bushels  of  cotton  seed.  Two  hundred  pounds  of 
it,  spun  and  woven  into  sheetings  and  Lowells,  will  give  a 
family  of  ten  an  abundance  of  cloth  for  dress  of  every 
description,  bed  coverlids,  bed  ticking,  table-cloths,  nap- 
kins, towels,  warp  for  rag  carpets,  and  yarn  for  knitting 
into  socks.  Two  hundred  pounds,  in  the  form  of  batting, 
will  afford  material  for  making  five  warm,  ample,  cotton 
beds,  and  five  thick,  downy  coverlids  to  cover  them.  If 
sixty  or  seventy  pounds  of  wool  are  bought,  raised,  or  ex- 
changed for  cotton,  it  will  give  material  for  half  a  dozen 
warm  blankets,  half  wool  and  half  cotton ;  also  a  hundred 
yards  of  Linsey,  for  the  winter  wear  of  the  whole  family. 
A  few  pounds  of  the  inferior  or  stained  cotton  can  be 
twisted  into  cords  and  ropes  for  beds,  plow  lines,  and  for 
binding  the  bales  of  a  future  crop.  The  hundred  and 
twenty  bushels  of  seed  could  be  sent  to  an  oil-mill  and  sold. 

In  this  calculation,  it  has  been  presumed  that  ten  or 
twelve  more  bales  will  be  raised  and  picked  out,  hauled 
to  the  mill  for  ginning  and  marketing  in  the  usual  way, 
which,  at  present  prices,  and  after  making  all  necessary 
discounts  for  ginning,  bagging,  hauling  to  market,  and 
commissions  and  taxes,  ought  to  bring  the  family  some 
twelve  hundred  dollars  in  cash. 
7 


146  COTTON   CULTURE. 

Thus,  with  no  more  industry  or  tact  than  is  displayed 
in  ten  thousands  of  American  families,  the  labors  of  a  sin- 
gle season  may  be  made  to  furnish  ten  persons,  not  more 
than  three  of  whom  are  adults,  an  abundance  of  plain  but 
warm  clothing,  a  generous  equipment  of  beds  and  bed- 
ding, a  full  supply  of  yarn,  cordage,  and  ropes,  oil  enough 
for  two  years,  and  more  than  a  thousand  dollars  in  cash ; 
beside  a  full  crop  of  corn,  potatoes,  oats,  wheat,  and  the 
usual  garden  vegetables.  Surely  there  is  no  other  crop 
cultivated  from  which  such  various  and  such  ample  returns 
can  be  expected,  and  no  part  of  the  world  that  affords 
such  attractions  to  the  industrious  poor,  as  the  higher  and 
healthier  portions  of  the  cotton  belt  of  North  America. 
All  that  is  required  to  make  those  regions  the  most  desir- 
able on  the  continent,  is  established  and  orderly  society, 
with  such  a  development  of  manufacturing  skill  as  will  en- 
able the  cotton  grower  to  realize  from  this  admirable 
plant  all  that  its  Creator  has  designed  for  the  material 
comfort  of  man  and  his  social  advancement. 

Some  years  ago,  when  cotton  often  brought  its  producer 
only  six  or  seven  cents  a  pound,  considerable  interest  was 
felt  in  a  discovery  by  which  this  abundant  staple  was  to 
be  employed  as  a  building  material.  Some  chemist  dis- 
covered a  petrifying  compound,  similar  to  Roman  cement, 
the  effect  of  which  was  to  convert  a  mass  of  cotton  upon 
which  it  was  poured  into  a  substance  having  the  hardness 
without  the  brittleness  of  stone.  He  proposed  to  build 
the  walls  of  houses  by  piling  the  cotton  between  planks 
at  the  requisite  distance  asunder,  and  pouring  the  cement 
upon  the  mass.  But  the  importance  of  this  discovery, 
however  surprising,  was  soon  neutralized  by  the  increased 
price  of  cotton;  and  with  the  demand  that  now  exists, 
and  will  continue  to  be  felt  for  many  years,  there  is  no 
likelihood  that  it  will  come  into  active  competition  with 
brick  and  mortar  as  a  building  material. 

Some  ten  years  ago,  a  Louisiana  Frenchman,  named 


COTTON   CULTURE.  147 

Loiiis  Blanc,  conducted  a  series  of  experiments  with  the 
view  of  utilizing  the  fibrous  bark  of  the  cotton  plant,  and 
making-  of  it  a  substitute  for  hemp.  He  arrived  at  some 
very  satisfactory  conclusions,  and  the  result  of  his  investi- 
gations may  be  stated  as  follows.  If  the  cotton  plant  is 
taken  at  full  maturity  before  damaged  by  frost,  cut  down, 
its  lateral  branches  broken  or  cut  away,  and  the  main  stem 
buried  under  a  shallow  furrow  for  ten  days  or  two  weeks, 
the  woody  fibre  becomes  so  decayed  that  it  may  be  treated 
like  hemp,  and  the  fibrous  bark  thus  disengaged  makes 
good  bagging  and  cordage. 

It  has  the  color  of  the  gunny  or  East  India  bagging, 
and  is  spun  like  the  Kentucky  heinp,  either  by  machinery, 
or  by  hand. 

The  best  way  of  producing  it  is  by  sowing  the  cotton 
seed  broadcast.  The  plant,  thus  grown,  runs  up  slender 
and  puts  out  but  few  lateral  branches,  thus  approximating 
in  appearance  to  hemp.  Whether  the  slender  or  the 
branching  plant  is  taken,  the  use  of  it  for  this  purpose 
cannot  be  connected  with  the  production  of  cotton  staple 
in  the  usual  way.  That  is  to  say,  a  plant  will  not  yield 
its  full  crop  of  bolls,  and  then  give  good  hemp  from  the 
stalk. 

But  it  will  often  occur  that  from  a  premature  frost,  or 
the  ravages  of  the  caterpillar,  a  field  of  cotton  is  stripped 
of  its  foliage,  while  the  stalk  is  still  green  and  full  of  life. 
In  cases  like  this,  a  disappointed  planter  may  find  his  pros- 
pects much  less  gloomy,  if  he  can,  at  once,  cut  down  his 
stalks  and  produce  from  the  bark  almost  as  many  bales  of 
cotton  stalk  hemp  as  he  would  have  harvested  of  lint  from 
the  bolls,  if  his  crop  had  matured. 

The  fibre  thus  obtained  has  been  used  by  some  manu- 
facturers as  a  substitute  for  rags  in  making  paper,  and  is 
found  to  answer  an  excellent  purpose.  In  some  soils,  as 
for  instance  that  of  the  lower  Mississippi  bottom,  cotton 
tends  to  rankness  of  growth  rather  than  productiveness, 


148  COTTON    CULTURE. 

and  it  may  be  found  that  more  could  be  realized  by  rais- 
ing the  plant  for  its  hemp,  than  by  cultivating  it  exclu- 
sively for  its  lint. 

But  this  use  of  the  plant  is  to  be  developed  by  future 
industry  and  experiments.  As  yet,  no  planters  have  en- 
gaged in  its  culture  for  the  purpose  to  such  an  extent,  or 
with  a  skill  and  system  that  enables  us  to  form  any  relia- 
ble opinion  as  to  the  practical  importance  of  this  discov- 
ery, for  which  Mr.  Blanc  has  taken  out  a  patent.  The 
price  of  cotton-wool  must  decline  considerably  below  the 
price  it  now  holds,  and  is  likely  to  keep  for  some  years, 
before  the  attention  of  cotton  growers  will  be  drawn  from 
the  boll  to  the  stalk ;  unless  Mr.  B.,  or  some  other  invent- 
or, shall  discover  some  way  of  making  the  stalk  useful 
after  it  has  ceased  to  produce  bolls,  and  all  the  open  cotton 
has  been  picked. 

If  facilities  for  converting  the  seed  into  oil  are  want- 
ing, let  it  be  used  as  manure.  In  this  form,  it  is  worth 
at  least  twenty-five  cents  a  bushel,  and  it  is  better 
policy,  as  a  rule,  to  feed  it  liberally  to  the  corn,  and  then 
feed  the  corn  to  the  stock.  Seventy-five  or  a  hundred 
bushels,  applied  to  an  acre  of  corn,  will  about  double  the 
yield.  If  it  would  give  fifteen  bushels  without  the  cotton 
seed,  it  will  yield  thirty  with  this  dressing.  Nor  does  its 
effect  cease  with  the  first  crop  grown  by  its  aid.  Corn 
land,  thus  fertilized,  if  planted  the  next  year  in  cotton, 
yields  a  third  more,  and  its  effect  has  been  found  to  last 
for  five  years  after  it  was  applied. 

In  a  previous  chapter,  where  the  analysis  of  cotton-wool 
and  cotton  seed  are  given,  it  appears  that  the  latter  is  es- 
pecially rich  in  potash,  in  lime,  and  phosphorus,  the  three 
grand  elements  of  fertility.  As  a  special  and  lasting  ma- 
nure, cotton  seed  is  surpassed  only  by  bone-dust,  super- 
phosphate of  lime,  and  Peruvian  guano. 

Finally,  as  closing  this  recital  of  the  virtues  and  uses 
of  the  cotton  plant,  it  may  be  added  that  Southern  phy- 


COTTON   CULTURE.  149 

sicians  have  found  the  tea  of  its  root,  or  a  decoction  of  it, 
reduced  to  a  syrup,  a  valuable  antiperiodic.  It  counter- 
acts in  the  system  the  poison  of  those  rich  bottoms  and 
wide  alluvial  savannahs  where  the  plant  flourishes  and  at- 
tains its  greatest  perfection. 


CHAPTER      VII. 

THE   PAST  AND   THE    FUTURE   OF  COTTON;    ITS  HISTORY 
AND    STATISTICS. 

As  a  power  in  the  world,  as  a  prominent  feature  and 
main  element  of  civilization,  cotton  is  a  child  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  When  men  who  are  now  old  were  chil- 
dren, cotton  and  goods  made  from  it  were  spoken  of 
something  as  we  now  speak  of  Japanese  porcelain,  or 
mantles  from  Afghanistan,  as  of  articles  rare  and  foreign. 

In  this  country,  a  little  was  raised  by  almost  every 
thrifty  farmer  for  domestic  consumption.  The  seeds  were 
separated  from  the  lint  by  hand,  at  the  rate  of  about  a 
pound  in  a  day,  and  the  staple  was  spun  and  mainly  used 
for  knitting  into  stockings. 

There  are  neither  in  Homer,  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  or 
other  early  writings,  any  allusions  to  garments  made  of 
cotton.  The  skill  of  the  early  nations  in  the  manufacture 
of  fine  linen  and  in  the  weaving  of  wool  is  so  frequently 
alluded  to,  that  if  there  had  been  any  such  thing  as  cotton 
cloth  known  in  the  times  of  Homer  and  Solomon,  there 
must  have  been  reference  to  them.  Some  four  hundred 
and  fifty  years  before  Christ,  Herodotus,  in  whose  writings 
almost  everything  that  was  known  in  the  ancient  world  is 
described,  refers  to  cotton  very  distinctly,  and  describes  it 
as  a  wool-bearing  tree  in  India,  "  which  has  for  its  fruit," 


150  COTTON   CULTURE. 

he  says,  "  fleeces  more  delicate  and  beautiful  than  those 
of  sheep." 

Two  of  the  generals  of  Alexander,  when  they  returned 
from  the  far  East,  brought  back  the  first  detailed  accounts 
of  the  cotton  tree,  its  product,  and  the  extraordinary  fab- 
rics woven  from  it. 

By  degrees,  cotton  cloth  from  India  was  gradually  in- 
troduced to  the  polite  nations  of  the  old  world,  and  just 
before  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era,  the  Romans 
seem  to  have  imported  quite  large  amounts  of  it,  so  much 
so  that  Verres,  a  cotemporary  of  Cicero,  made  awnings 
of  it  when  he  was  in  Sicily.  Sixty-three  years  before 
Christ,  Livy  records  that  Lentulus  covered  the  Roman 
forum  with  a  cotton  awning ;  and  thirty  or  forty  years 
after,  Ca3sar  extended  a  cotton  awning  all  over  the  Via 
Sacra,  from  his  own  private  residence  to  the  Capitoline  Hill, 
a  display  of  gorgeous  magnificence  and  imperial  profusion 
which  seemed,  at  the  time,  to  the  Romans,  more  dazzling 
than  his  exhibitions  in  the  forum. 

Many  of  these  Hindoo  cotton  fabrics  were  very  extra- 
ordinary when  considered  as  the  product  of  the  rude 
looms  in  which  they  were  woven.  They  have  been  excel- 
led in  delicacy  and  perfection  only  by  employing  the  most 
consummate  mechanism  of  modern  skill.  The  Indian 
spins  the  cotton  yarn  with  his  fingers  and  distaff  alone, 
and  by  long  practise  and  wonderful  patience,  he  acquires 
the  art  of  drawing  out,  incorporating  and  twisting  the 
fibres  into  a  thread,  almost  absolutely  uniform  in  size,  and 
hardly  larger  than  the  filament  of  a  spider.  The  only  ma- 
chine he  uses  in  weaving  is  a  rude  loom,  which  he  carries 
about  with  him,  setting  it  up  under  a  tree,  to  the  branch 
of  which  he  attaches  the  balances.  He  digs  a  little  pit  in 
the  ground  where  a  part  of  the  gear  is  arranged  ;  he  sits 
upon  the  edge  of  the  pit,  thrusts  his  feet  into  it,  and  at- 
taches the  cords  of  the  treadle  to  loops  that  go  around  the 
great  toes.  By  arrangements  so  rude  and  primitive  as 


COTTON   CULTURE.  151 

these,  from  which  we  should  hardly  expect  a  fair  article 
of  gunny  bagging,  he  makes  those  fine  muslins  which  the 
Greeks  called  "  Gangetekoi,"  or  Ganges  goods,  some  of 
which  were  plain,  some  ornamental,  and  some  dyed  with 
exquisite  colors. 

Tavernier,  a  French  traveler,  speaks  of  some  muslins 
and  calicoes  which  he  saw  at  Surat,  "so  fine  that  you 
could  hardly  feel  them  in  your  hand ;  and  the  thread,  when 
span,  is  scarcely  discernible." 

The  late  Rev.  William  Ward,  Missionary  at  Serampore, 
speaks  of  muslins  made  in  Bengal,  so  fine,  that  a  piece  re- 
quires four  months  to  make  it,  and  is  worth  five  hundred 
rupees ;  this  fabric,  when  spread  upon  grass  and  moistened 
with  de\v,  is  so  extremely  thin  as  to  be  imperceptible 
without  careful  examination.  A  single  pound  of  this 
thread  was  spun  out  to  the  length  of  a  hundred  and  fifteen 
miles,  and  it  is  only  of  late  that  this  hand  spinning  of 
Hindostan  has  been  surpassed  by  English  machines,  which 
produced,  for  the  Great  Exhibition  of  1851  thread  so  fine 
that  a  pound  of  it  would  reach  over  a  thousand  miles. 

There  is  a  small  district  forty  miles  long  and  about  three 
broad,  lying  northeast  of  Calcutta,  which  produces  a  sta- 
ple of  great  fineness,  but  too  short  to  be  spun  by  Euro- 
peans, or  woven  by  any  machinery.  From  this  cotton  is 
manufactured,  in  the  rude  way  above  described,  the  famous 
Decca  muslins,  sometimes  called  webs  of  woven  wind. 
On  account  of  the  wonderful  fineness  of  these  Indian  fab- 
rics, it  was  supposed  that  a  very  superior  quality,  and  per- 
haps large  amounts  of  cotton,  might  be  grown  in  India, 
and  thus  a  source  opened  to  the  English  spinner  from 
which  he  could  supply  himself,  and  feel  a  dependence  less 
absolute  upon  American  cotton.  The  experiment  was  a 
very  faithful  one.  Several  southern  gentlemen,  and  five 
or  six  experienced  overseers,  men  practically  familiar  with 
every  detail  of  cotton  growing,  went  out  to  India,  taking 
with  them  a  large  assortment  of  improved  seed,  the  best 


152  COTTOX    CULTURE. 

of  gins,  models  for  gin-houses,  and  the  necessary  imple- 
ments for  cultivating  the  crop.  They  remained  there 
some  six  years.  Their  experiments  were  constantly  di- 
rected to  overcoming  the  various  difficulties  which  they 
found  in  the  way  of  raising  large  crops.  They  came  away 
entirely  satisfied  that  neither  the  soil  nor  the  climate  of 
India  fits  it  to  be  a  producer  of  any  considerable  amount 
of  the  higher  grades  of  cotton.  The  unvarying  division 
of  its  seasons  into  wet  and  dry,  and  the  quick  transition 
from  one  to  the  other,  are  ill  adapted  to  cotton,  which,  for 
its  successful  growth,  requires  a  wet  and  warm  spring, 
allowing  the  young  plants  to  become  well  started  and 
firmly  set  in  the  soil ;  then  a  long  hot  summer  with  bright 
days  and  dewy  nights,  and  occasional  showers,  (but  no  vio- 
lent storms,)  to  mature  the  bolls,  and  a  long,  dry  autumn, 
giving  full  time  for  gathering  the  crop. 

In  Egypt,  where  the  culture  of  cotton  was  introduced 
about  the  year  1821,  the  climate  and  soil  are  both  favor- 
able, and  the  quality  of  Egyptian  cotton  compares  very 
well  with  that  of  America ;  but  the  quantity,  owing  to 
the  dependence  of  all  agricultural  operations  on  the  inun- 
dation of  the  Nile,  is  very  uncertain,  the  fluctuations  •be- 
ing extreme  and  beyond  calculation. 

The  shores  of  Western  Africa,  and  Yoruba,  in  the  in- 
terior, produce  cotton  in  large  quantities,  but  the  staple  is 
too  coarse  and  short  for  the  manufacture  of  the  finer  fab- 
rics. The  distinguished  traveler,  Dr.  Livingstone,  has  re- 
cently furnished  much  information  as  to  the  capacity  of 
this  region  for  the  growth  of  cotton.  He  returned  to 
Africa  in  the  spring  of  1858,  prepared  to  prosecute  the 
culture  of  the  crop.  Since  the  year  1852,  Mr.  Thomas 
Clegg  has  been  engaged  in  the  region  of  Sierra  Leone, 
and,  being  provided  with  gins  and  other  apparatus,  so  far 
succeeded,  that  in  1858,  the  total  amount  sent  to  Eng- 
land from  that  part  of  the  world  was  nearly  a  hundred 
thousand  pounds.  In  quality,  the  African  cotton  is  decid- 


COTTOX   CULTURE.  153 

edly  superior  to  that  from  East  India,  and  in  fineness  and 
length  of  staple  ranks  next  to  American  cotton. 

In  the  Xew  World,  the  manufacture  of  cotton  cloth  ap- 
pears to  have  been  well  understood  by  the  Mexicans  aud 
Peruvians  long  before  the  advent  of  Cortez  and  Pizarro 
to  these  shores.  Columbus  found  the  cotton  plant  grow- 
ing wild  in  Hispaniola,  and  the  explorers  that  followed 
him  recognized  it  as  far  north  as  the  country  bordering 
on  the  Mississippi  River. 

Coptez,  when  he  set  out  from  Trinidad,  on  the  southern 
coast  of  Cuba,  on  his  Mexican  expedition,  used  cotton  for 
padding  or  quilting  the  jackets  of  his  soldiers  as  a  protec- 
tion against  Indian  arrows.  He  learned  this  from  the 
natives,  by  whom  it  had  been  long  used  for  that  purpose. 
Arrived  on  the  Mexican  coast,  among  the  gorgeous  pres- 
ents sent  him  by  the  confiding  Montezuma  were  "  cur- 
tains, coverlids,  and  robes  of  cotton,  fine  as  silk,  of  rich 
and  various  dyes,  interwoven  with  feather  work,  that  riv- 
aled the  delicacy  of  painting."  The  Mexicans  also  under- 
stood the  manufacture  of  white  cotton  cloths,  and  even 
possessed  the  art  of  converting  them  into  a  species  of  pa- 
per. In  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century,  the  West  In- 
dies shipped  to  England  something  like  forty  thousand 
.bales,  which  was,  at  that  time,  nearly  three-fourths  of  the 
cotton  supply.  It  was  mostly  long  staple  cotton,  of  fine 
quality  and,  considering  the  climate  and  the  soil  of  those 
islands,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  cotton  culture 
will  revive  and  take  the  place  of  sugar,  which  supplanted 
it  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago. 

The  culture  of  cotton  in  Brazil  commenced  in  the  early 
part  of  the  present  century,  and  increased  so  rapidly, 
that  for  a  number  of  years,  Brazil  exceeded  every  other 
country,  except  the  United  States,  in  the  amount  of  cot- 
ton it  produced.  In  many  places  on  the  coast,  the  climate 
was  found  adapted  to  the  growth  of  long  staple  cotton. 
But,  of  late,  the  plantations  have  retired  toward  the  in- 


154  COTTON   CULTTJEE. 

terior,  and  the  amount  produced  throughout  the  kingdom 
increases  but  slowly.  During  the  ten  years,  from  1843  to 
1853,  the  increase  was  only  six  thousand  bales,  and  the 
product  of  the  latter  year  was  sixty-five  thousand  bales. 
Four-fifths  of  the  Brazilian  crop  is  exported  to  Great 
Britain.  The  first  production  of  cotton  in  that  country 
was  almost  simultaneous  with  the  first  raised  in  the  United 
States.  Its  export  to  England  began  in  1781,  and  it  was 
1784,  three  years  after,  that  eight  bags  of  cotton,  shipped 
from  the  United  States  to  England,  were  seized  on  the 
ground  that  so  much  cotton  could  not  be  produced  in  the 
United  States. 

The  growth  of  cotton  in  Brazil  is  not  likely  for  many 
years,  and  perhaps  never,  to  attain  any  great  importance. 
Along  the  coast  the  climate  is  unfavorable,  and  the  rav- 
ages of  insects  are  such  as  to  make  the  cotton  crop  very 
uncertain.  In  the  interior  provinces,  the  difficulties  of 
raising  it  are  not  so  great ;  but  the  sparseness  of  the  popu- 
lation and  the  slowness  and  the  almost  insuperable  obstacles 
in  the  way  of  transportation  of  what  is  produced,  must 
limit  the  amount  grown. 

Pernambuco  is  the  principal  cotton  growing  province 
of  Brazil ;  but  between  the  years  1828  and  1845,  the  ex- 
ports from  Pernambuco  declined  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
make  a  poor  showing  for  cotton  in  Brazil.  In  1828,  there 
were  exported  a  little  over  seventy  thousand  bales  of  one 
hundred  and  sixty  pounds  each ;  in  1845,  seven  years 
after,  the  export  was  a  little  over  twenty-six  thousand 
bales  of  one  hundred  and  sixty  pounds  each. 

There  is  no  authentic  statement  as  to  the  precise  time 
when  cotton  was  cultivated  in  the  British  Colonies  of 
North  America,  now  the  United  States.  It  is  probable 
that,  from  the  settlement  of  the  country,  a  little  was  raised 
in  most  of  the  southern  colonies.  In  a  pamphlet  on  the 
attractions  of  North  America,  published  very  early  in 
1600,  a  year  or  two  after  Jamestown  was  settled,  it  is 


COTTON   CULTURE.  155 

stated  that  cotton  would  grow  as  well  in  Virginia  as  in 
Italy ;  and  in  the  very  last  part  of  that  century,  another 
authority  states  that  Sir  Edmund  Andros,  while  Governor 
of  Virginia,  in  1692,  "  gave  particular  marks  of  his  favor 
towards  the  propagation  of  cotton,  which,  since  his  time, 
has  been  much  neglected."  tip  to  the  time  of  the  Revo- 
lutionary War,  so  little  was  raised  that  it  deserves  no 
mention  as  one  of  the  American  exports.  Within  ten 
years  from  the  Declaration  of  Peace  between  the  United 
States  and  England,  cotton  culture  received  an  amazing 
impetus  from  the  discovery,  by  Eli  Whitney,  of  a  rapid 
and  effectual  mode  of  separating  Upland  cotton  from 
its  seed.  The  manner  in  which  the  attention  of  young 
Whitney  was  drawn  to  the  invention  of  the  cotton-gin  is 
a  matter  of  so  great  interest  that  the  folio  wing  brief 
statement  is  copied  from  the  memoir  of  Eli  Whitney,  writ- 
ten by  Professor  Olmstead,  of  Yale  College : 

"  After  leaving  college,  Mr.  Whitney,  who  had  already 
distinguished  himself  for  his  mechanical  skill,  and  for  bold 
and  self-relying  enterprise,  almost  immediately  went  to 
the  State  of  Georgia  for  the  purpose  of  fulfilling  his  en- 
gagement with  a  gentleman  to  reside  in  his  family  as  a 
private  teacher."  This  was  in  the  latter  part  of  the  year 
1792.  On  his  way  to  Savannah  by  ship,  he  had  as  a  com- 
panion of  his  voyage,  the  widow  of  the  then  late  General 
Greene,  'so  distinguished  in  the  annals  of  our  revolutionary 
history.  On  his  arrival  at  Savannah,  being  but  partially 
recovered  from  the  small  pox,  which  he  had  by  inoculation, 
lie  was  invited  by  Mrs.  Greene  to  spend  a  little  time  at  her 
residence  at  Mulberry  Grove,  near  that  city.  He  soon 
learned  that  another  teacher  had  been  employed  in  the 
place  which  he  had  expected.  Mrs.  Greene  at  once  kindly 
and  generously  proposed  to  him  to  commence  the  study 
of  the  law  under  her  hospitable  roof,  and  to  remain  in  her 
family  as  long  as  he  should  choose.  He  had  not  been 
long  with  her  before  he  gave  striking  proofs  of  his  mechan- 


156  COTTON    CULTURE. 

ical  ingenuity,  which  attracted  the  attention  of  Mrs.  G., 
and  led  her  to  feel  that  Whitney  could  meet  any  exigency 
in  which  invention  and  skill  of  this  kind  were  required. 
Not  long  after,  Mrs.  Greene  was  visited  by  several  gentle- 
men from  upper  Georgia,  principally  officers,  who  had 
served  with  her  husband  in  the  war.  Of  these  were  Maj  ors 
Brewer,  Forsythe,  and  Pendleton.  They  conversed 
largely  upon  the  situation  and  prospects  of  agriculture  in 
the  opening  upper  country  of  the  South,  and  expressed 
regret  that  no  means  had  been  devised  to  clear  the  Upland 
cotton  from  the  seed,  saying,  that  unless  such  a  point  could 
be  obtained,  it  was  vain  to  raise  cotton  for  the  market. 
Mrs.  Greene  interrupted  their  conversation,  by  saying, 
"  Gentlemen,  apply  to  my  young  friend,  Mr.  Whitney ;  he 
can  make  anything."  After  showing  them,  as  the  results 
of  his  ingenuity,  the  various  mechanical  contrivances 
which  he  had  devised  and  executed,  she  introduced  him  to 
the  circle,  who  at  once  made  known  the  object  to  be  ac- 
complished, and  the  difficulties  which  were  in  the  way. 
Whitney,  in  reply,  disclaimed  any  superiority  of  mechan- 
ical genius,  and  added  that  he  had  never  in  his  life  seen 
either  cotton  or  cotton  seed.  Mrs.  Greene  then  said  :  "  I 
have  accomplished  my  aim.  Mr.  Whitney  is  a  very  de- 
serving young  man,  and  to  bring  him  into  notice  was  my 
object.  The  interest  which  our  friends  now  feel  for  him 
will,  I  hope,  lead  to  his  getting  some  employment  to  ena- 
ble him  to  prosecute  the  study  of  the  law." 

The  hint  given  to  Whitney  by  these  gentlemen  was  not 
lost  upon  him.  The  season  for  cotton  in  the  seed  was 
passed,  but  Whitney  went  to  Savannah  at  once,  and  after 
a  long  search,  at  last  lighted  upon  a  small  quantity ;  with 
this  he  returned  to  his  temporary  home  and  communicated 
liis  intentions  to  Mr.  Miller,  who  was  then  a  teacher  in  the 
family  and  afterwards  married  Mrs.  Greene.  A  room  was 
assigned  to  him  to  which  Mr.  Miller  and  Mrs.  Greene 
were  the  only  persons  who  were  admitted,  or  who  knew 


t~\ 

COTTON   CULTURE.  -\   f  *157  j 

anything  of  his  project.     His  mat$riafe/aiid  tools'* ^e^-e 
both  limited;  even  the  wire  which  nV^cpira^pjild  no/'j^ 
be  found  at  Savannah,  and  he  was  forceci^feo  draw^tf/qr 

*   i        •  * 

himself.  Near  the  close  of  the  winter  the  machine  was- ab/  . 
nearly  completed  as  to  leave  no  doubt  of  its  success.  ^« 
Mrs.  Greene  was  naturally  eager  to  communicate  to  her 
friends  the  fact  of  an  invention  which  promised  at  once  a 
great  staple,  precisely  adapted  to  their  soil,  occupation  for 
their  hands,  and  immense  wealth,  as  the  result  of  an  ex- 
tended culture  of  an  article  which  had  been  thought  of 
little  worth.  She  invited  to  her  house  gentlemen  of 
distinction  from  different  parts  of  the  State,  and  conducted 
her  assembled  guests  to  the  room  in  which  they  saw  with 
astonishment  a  machine  which  promised  such  splendid  re- 
sults for  all  their  interest. 

The  petition  for  a  patent  was  presented  to  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son, the  Secretary  of  State,  June  20,  1793.  Mr.  Jefferson 
at  once  took  a  strong  interest  in  the  invention  and  its 
originator,  and  assured  Mr.  Whitney  that  his  request 
should  be  granted  as  soon  as  the  model  was  lodged  at  the 
Patent  Office.  In  consequence  of  unavoidable  delays, 
however,  the  patent  was  not  secured  in  form  until  several 
moiiths  afterwards. 

Like  many  other  inventors,  Mr.  Whitney  was  destined 
to  wade  through  a  series  of  tedious  and  vexatious  litiga- 
tions before  he  realized  anything  like  an  adequate  personal 
return  for  his  ingenuity  and  skill.  But  the  effect  of  his 
invention  was  immediately  seen  in  the  extraordinary  in- 
crease in  the  cultivation  of  Green  Seed  or  Upland  cotton. 
Within  fourteen  years  of  the  time  when  he  first  made  the 
discovery,  the  importance  of  the  invention  and  its  effect' 
upon  Southern  agriculture  and  prosperity  are  set  forth  in 
terms  as  follows,  by  Judge  Johnson,  of  Savannah,  in  a 
suit  to  sustain  the  validity  of  Whitney's  patent : 

"  The  Green  Seed  is  a  species  much  more  productive 
than  the  Black,  and  by  nature  adapted  to  a  much  greater 


158  COTTON    CULTURE. 

variety  of  climate.  But  by  reason  of  the  strong  adher- 
ence of  the  fibre  to  the  seed,  without  the  aid  of  some  more 
powerful  machine  for  separating  it  than  any  formerly 
known  among  us,  the  cultivation  of  it  would  never  have 
been  made  an  object.  The  machine  of  which  Mr.  Whit- 
ney claims  the  invention  so  facilitates  the  preparation  of 
this  species  for  use,  that  the  cultivation  of  it  has  suddenly 
become  an  object  of  infinitely  greater  national  importance 
than  that  of  the  other  species  ever  can  be.  With  regard 
to  the  utility  of  this  discovery,  the  whole  interior  of  the 
Southern  States  was  languishing,  and  its  inhabitants 
emigrating  for  want  of  some  object  to  engage  their  atten- 
tion and  employ  their  industry,  when  the  invention  of  this 
machine  at  once  opened  views  to  them  which  set  the  whole 
country  in  active  motion.  From  childhood  to  age  it  has 
presented  to  us  a  lucrative  employment.  Individuals 
who  were  depressed  with  poverty  and  sunk  in  idleness, 
have  suddenly  risen  to  wealth  and  respectability.  Our 
debts  have  been  paid  off,  our  capitals  have  increased,  and 
our  lands  trebled  themselves  in  value.  We  cannot  express 
the  weight  of  the  obligation  which  the  country  owes  to 
this  invention.  The  extent  of  it  cannot  now  be  seen." 

A  study  of  the  statistical  tables,  giving  the  product  of 
^  cotton  for  different  years,  its  price,  the  supplies  that  come 
from  various  parts  of  the  world,  and  the  distribution  of 
the  cotton  raised  throughout  the  world,  so  far  as  can  be 
ascertained,  will  serve  to  impress  upon  our  minds  the  won- 
derful commercial  results  that  have  followed  this  invention 
of  Eli  Whitney,  and  will  throw  much  light  upon  the  ques- 
tion as  to  whether  the  cotton  culture  of  the  United  States 
is  likely  to  be  impaired  by  the  amounts  produced  in  other 
countries.  When  the  gin  was  invented,  England  received 
from  America  only  one  bag  in  a  hundred  and  twenty-six. 
Three  years  after,  in  1795,  she  received  one  in  twenty-five, 
and  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  about  one- 
eighth  of  the  importation  was  from  America.  In  1820, 


COTTOX   CULTURE.  159 

about  two-thirds  of  all  the  cotton  brought  into  England, 
was  from  the  United  States.  At  present,  or  rather  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  late  Civil  War,  England  was  dependent 
on  America  for  seven-eighths  of  her  cotton  supply.  From 
1806  to  1830,  the  crop  of  the  United  States  did  not  vary 
greatly  from  a  million  of  bales  annually.  From  1830  to 
1840  there  was  a  steady  increase,  though  not  without  fluc- 
tuations produced  by  unfavorable  seasons,  until,  in  the  lat- 
ter year  (1840,)  for  the  first  time,  the  crop  went  a  little 
over  two  millions. 

Between  1840  and  1850  the  annual  crop  ranged  between 
two  and  three  millions,  except  on  three  years,  when  it  fell 
back  to  about  a  million  and  three-quarters.  The  crop  of 
1852  was  the  first  in  America  that  ever  went  over  three 
millions.  From  that  time  to  the  crash  of  the  cotton  in- 
terest, produced  by  the  war  ten  years  after,  the  crop 
ranged  between  three  and  three  and  a  half  millions,  ex- 
cept on  three  years,  as  in  the  former  decade,  .when,  on  ac- 
count of  an  unfavorable  season  or  the  worm,  it  fell  below 
two  millions.  The  cotton  interest  was  never  so  thriving 
as  immediately  before  the  war.  By  the  law  of  increase 
which  we  have  observed  in  the  foregoing  statistics,  the 
crop  of  1862  should  have  been  four  millions  of  bales,  and 
by  the  same  law  should,  in  four  or  five  years  from  now, 
(1867)  be  approximating,  at  least,  to  five  millions  of  bales. 
A  similar  increase  may  be  noted  in  the  average  price  of 
cotton  per  pound  as  in  the  amount  produced;  but  the 
fluctuations  here  have  been  much  greater.  The  highest 
price  realized  for  any  crop  previous  to  the  war  was  for 
that  of  1820,  the  highest  grades  of  which  sold  on  an  aver- 
age for  about  thirty-four  cents  per  pound.  It  fell  away  in 
1830  and  1832  to  nine  cents  as  an  average  price,  and  then 
continued  to  rise  until  1836,  the  crop  of  which  year  sold 
for  nearly  seventeen  cents  per  pound ;  after  which  there 
was  a  general  though  fluctuating  decline,  the  lowest  price 
being  realized  for  the  crops  of  1843,  1845,  and  1849, 


160  COTTON    CULTURE. 

which  brought  the  planter  but  little  more  than  six  cents  a 
pound.  From  1849  on  until  1864  the  increase  was  steady, 
until  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  and  then  enormously  rapid. 
The  average  price  realized  for  the  crop  sold  immediately 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  war  was  about  thirteen  cents. 
The  value  of  that  part  of  the  crop  which  was  exported, 
generally  three-fourths  of  the  whole  amount  raised,  was 
something  less  than  one  hundred  and  forty  millions  annu- 
ally, for  two  or  three  years  previous  to  the  war.  The 
lowest  amount  received  by  the  planter  was  for  the  crop 
of  1831,  which  sold  for  only  twenty-five  millions  of  dol- 
lars, its  average  price  per  pound  being  only  nine  cents. 
The  quantity  absorbed  by  the  home  market  in  1856,  a  lit- 
tle more  than  three-quarters  of  a  million  of  bales,  and 
worth  about  thirty  millions  of  dollars,  was,  by  a  moderate 
estimate,  made  to  produce  nearly  five  times  this  sum  by 
the  industry  applied  to  its  manufacture  in  the  States  north 
of  Virginia,  .  In  1856  and  1857,  Mr.  J.  B.  Gribble,  of  New 
Orleans,  prepared  a  table  presenting  the  distribution  to 
various  countries  of  the  entire  cotton  crop  raised  in  all 
parts  of  the  world.  According  to  his  estimates,  the  whole 
amount  produced  was  a  little  over  four  millions  of  bales. 
He  assumed  the  average  weight  of  packages  of  raw  cot- 
ton to  be :  From  the  West  Indies,  a  hundred  and  seventy- 
three  pounds  ;  Brazil,  one  hundred  and  eighty-one ;  Egypt, 
three  hundred  and  six ;  East  Indies,  three  hundred  and 
eighty-five ;  and  the  United  States,  four  hundred  and  for- 
ty. Reducing  all  these  bales  to  four  hundred  pounds 
each,  he  arrives  at  the  following  conclusions  with  regard 
to  the  crop  of  1856  and  1857,  which  may  be  taken  with 
very  slight  modifications  as  the  true  exponent  of  the  cot- 
ton interest,  and  the  best  summary  of  cotton  statistics  at 
the  time  when  this  great  staple  was  at  its  maximum  de- 
velopment, just  previous  to  the  war :  The  product  of  the 
West  Indies,  a  little  over  four  thousand  bales ;  of  Brazil, 
five  thousand  five  hundred ;  of  Egypt,  eighty-six  thous- 


COTTON   CULTURE.  1G1 

and,  four  hundred  and  forty-five ;  of  the  East  Indies,  four 
hundred  forty-five  thousand,  six  hundred  and  thirty-seven ; 
and  for  the  United  States,  three  millions,  eight  hundred 
and  eighty  thousand,  five  hundred  and  eighty — or  nearly 
seven-eighths  of  the  product  of  the  world.  . 

Of  this  whole  amount,  a  little  less  than  half  went  di- 
rectly to  the  English  mills ;  one-sixth  was  manufactured 
in  America,  and  the  balance  in  other  European  States. 

A  study  of  the  tables  prepared  by  Mr.  Gribble,  those 
contained  in  the  New  Orleans  Price  Current,  and  those  in 
the  Xew  York  Shipping  and  Commercial  List,  though  va- 
rying considerably  in  their  details,  as  all  such  tables  will, 
and  none  of  them  more  than  proximately  correct,  has 
brought  me  to  the  following  conclusions : 

I. — The  regular  increase  in  the  growth  of  American 
cotton  from  the  year  1830  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil 
War  was  at  the  rate  of  an  additional  million  of  bales 
about  every  ten  years. 

II. — The  fluctuation  in  the  amount  of  American  cotton 
produced  has  always  been  moderate ;  thus,  for  instance, 
between  1830  and  1840,  the  crop  in  three  yoars  went  be- 
low the  figures  of  1830;  then  again,  between  1840  and 
1850,  the  crop  went  three  times  below  the  figure  of  1840 ; 
thus  apparently  establishing  the  rule  that  drought,  frosts, 
or  the  caterpillar,  may  be  expected  materially  to  diminish 
only  three  crops  in  ten  on  American  soil. 

III. — When  a  crop  is  once  stowed  in  bottoms  at  the 
great  exporting  towns,  the  country  to  which  it  shall  go  is 
a  matter  determined  almost  entirely  by  the  facilities  for 
manufacturing  which  different  countries  afford ;  and  as  in 
England  there  is,  at  present,  a  combination  on  the  larg- 
est scale  of  cheap  motive  power  with  cheap  labor,  Eng- 
land will  continue  to  receive  the  largest  amounts  of  cotton 
as  long  as  her  coal  is  abundant  and  low-priced.  In  1860, 
she  manufactured  half  the  cotton  produced  in  the  world. 

IV. — The  cotton  manufactures  of  Great  Britain  have 


162  COTTON    CULTUBE. 

advanced  pari  passu  with  the  development  of  cotton 
growing  in  the  United  States ;  her  looms,  spindles,  and 
her  markets,  are  all  adjusted  to  the  staple  of  American 
Upland,  and  this  is  the  style  of  cotton  of  which  she  re- 
quires th£  greatest  quantities.  American  cotton  cannot  be 
replaced  in  her  mills  to  advantage  by  that  grown  either  in 
India  or  Africa,  and  no  other  manufacturing  nation  is  pre- 
pared to  underbid  England  in  the  production  of  the  finer 
qualities  of  cotton  fabrics,  especially  muslins.  Up  to  1860 
the  cotton  supply  from  other  sources  than  the  United 
States  had  increased  in  some  cases  very  slowly,  and  in  oth- 
ers decreased ;  the  principle  increase  being  from  East  In- 
dia and  Africa,  which  furnish  the  poorest  staple. 

Y. — England  can  feel  no  reliance  for  her  cotton  supply 
upon  any  other  country  than  the  United  States,  and 
the  American  supply  is,  in  general,  very  reliable  whenever 
the  system  of  labor  is  settled  and  permanent.  Whatever 
cotton  can  be  produced  upon  American  soil  will  find  a 
prompt  market  in  England,  and  until  the  supply  from 
America  passes  two  million  bales,  which  are  necessary  to 
keep  all  the  spindles  of  England  in  motion,  there  is  no 
probability  that  cotton  will  fall  below  fifteen  cents,  and, 
probably,  it  will  not  go  so  low  as  that  for  quite  a  number 
of  years. 

About  ten  years  before  our  late  war,  a  writer  in  the 
London  Economist,  an  English  paper  devoted  to  the  ex- 
amination of  questions  like  this,  traced  the  progress  of 
the  cotton  trade  from  1838  to  1850,  and  the  facts,  as  then 
known,  brought  him  to  the  following  conclusions : 

That  the  supply  of  cotton  from  other  sources  than  the 
United  States  has  been  irregularly  decreasing;  that,  in- 
cluding the  United  States,  the  supply  from  all  quarters 
available  for  English  consumption  had,  of  late  years,  that 
is  from  1840  to  1850,  been  falling  off  at  the  rate  of  a 
thousand  bales  a  week,  while  the  consumption  had  been 
increasing  at  the  same  time  at  the  rate  of  thirty-six  hun- 


COTTON   CULTUKE.  163 

dred  bales  a  week;  that  in  the  United  States  alone,  the 
growth  is  increasing,  but  limited  there  to  about  the  same 
ratio  as  the  increase  of  the  colored  laborers,  that  is,  five 
per  cent,  per  annum,  an  increase  barely  sufficient  to  sup- 
ply the  growing  demand  for  its  own  consumption  and  for 
the  continent  of  Europe;  and  that,  consequently,  if  this 
branch  of  industry  is  to  increase  at  all,  on  its  present  foot- 
ing in  Great  Britain,  it  must  be  by  applying  a  greater 
stimulus  to  the  growth  of  cotton  in  other  countries  adapt- 
ed to  its  culture.  The  incapacity  of  other  regions  to  sup- 
ply the  demand  being  shown,  the  writer  looks  to  the  Brit- 
ish West  India  Islands,  and  the  African  and  Australasian 
colonies  as  most  likely  to  make  up  the  deficiency. 

From  the  year  1860  to  1865  the  question  of  the  cotton 
supply  was  one  of  intense  interest,  on  account  of  the  al- 
most entire  withdrawal  of  contributions  to  the  cotton 
market  from  the  American  States,  coupled  with  very  grave 
doubts  whether  for  many  years,  at  least,  the  state  of  things 
in  those  unhappy  regions  would  admit  of  settled  and  suc- 
cessful industry.  But  we  have  seen  that  under  the  enor- 
mous stimulus  of,  at  times,  a  dollar  a  pound,  and,  most  of 
the  time,  fifty  cents  and  over  per  pound,  for  the  last  four 
years,  that  the  supply  from  other  countries  than  the  Unit- 
ed States  has  not  been  greatly  augmented;  and  now,  as 
cottons  are  slowly  declining,  the  figures  are  falling  back 
to  about  what  they  were  before  the  war.  The  effect  is 
not  that  the  world  gets  along  without  American  cottons, 
but  rather  that  in  view  of  the  diminished  supply  from 
America,  the  consumption  of  cotton  has  decreased,  and 
that  of  linen,  silk,  and  woolen,  especially  the  latter,  has 
increased.  But  this  diminished  consumption  is  an  enforc- 
ed and  unnatural  state  of  things.  The  demand  for  manu- 
factured goods  throughout  the  world  is  largely  increasing, 
and  the  proper  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  all  these  facts 
and  figures  is,  that  no  part  of  the  world,  during  the  pres- 
ent century,  has  offered  or  is  likely  to  offer  so  large  a  field 


1C4  COTTON    CULTURE. 

for  common,  unskilled  labor,  with  returns  so  certain  and 
so  generous  as  the  cotton  States  of  the  North  American 
Republic. 


CHAPTER      VIII. 

PRACTICAL  SUGGESTIONS  AS  TO  VARIOUS  CLASSES  OF  PER- 
SONS WHO  PROPOSE  TO  ENGAGE  IN  COTTON  GROWING. 

With  such  attractions  and  natural  advantages  as  the 
cotton  States  possess,  and  with  commercial  reasons  so 
cogent  as  those  presented  in  the  last  chapter  for  believing 
in  a  future  for  cotton  growers  in  America  more  brilliant 
than  anything  in  the  past,  it  is  not  to  be  presumed  that 
political  disorder  will,  for  any  great  length  of  time,  seri- 
ously embarrass  the  cotton  interest.  For  a  while  it  must 
be  supposed  that  the  cotton  growing  interest  will  be 
greatly  deranged.  There  has  been  and  will  continue  to 
be  considerable  difficulty  every  spring  in  obtaining  good 
seed ;  the  caterpillar  and  the  army-worm  are  more  likely 
to  commit  their  depredations  in  seasons  when  the  breadth 
of  lands  in  cotton  is  smaller  than  usual,  and  the  culture 
has  been  languid  and  imperfect.  With  cotton  at  an 
average  of  ten  cents  per  pound,  the  South  for  thirty  years 
before  the  war  was  rapidly  increasing  in  wealth,  and  the 
law  of  increment  appeared  to  be  such  that  the  crop  doub- 
led itself  evjery  twenty  years.  Now,  with  cotton  at  two 
or  three  times  that  price,  and  a  larger  amount  of  labor 
seeking  employment  throughout  the  country  than  ever  be- 
fore, it  is  not  credible  that  political  differences  and  uncer- 
tainties can  long  arrest  the  march  of  the  great  laws  of 
political  economy.  It  requires  little  sagacity  to  predict 
that  this  transition  state  cannot  last  long,  since  society  is 
so  rigidly  controlled  by  its  material  interests  as  not  to 


COTTON   CtJLTTJRE.  165 

permit  the  continuance  for  a  great  length  of  time  of  such 
a  state  of  things.  One  great  effect  of  the  recent  radical 
changes  in  Southern  society  has  been  the  opening  of  the 
cotton  fields  of  the  South  to  the  labor  of  all  races,  instead 
of  their  being  restricted  to  the  labor  of  one,  and  in  giving 
scope  to  every  class  of  industrial  enterprises  and  to  varied 
forms  of  organized  labor.  Up  to  the  year  1860  there  was, 
practically,  but  one  way  of  raising  cotton,  but  one  class 
of  persons  who  performed  the  labor,  and  but  a  single  and 
unvarying  system  for  applying  that  labor  to  the  soil. 
Now  those  lands  can  be  and  are  likely  to  be  possessed  and 
tilled,  in  many  instances  by  large  joint  stock  companies, 
whose  operations  extend  over  an  area  of  perhaps  twenty 
thousand  acres,  and  whose  business  reaches  annually  to 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars.  Enterprises  like  this 
were  impracticable  and  unknown  under  the  former  system. 
Very  large  amounts  of  cotton,  greater,  perhaps,  than  by 
any  other  method,  will  be  grown,  as  grass  and  wheat  and 
corn  are  produced,  in  the  Northern  and  North-western 
States,  by  the  labor  of  the  land-owner  himself,  who,  with 
the  aid  of  one  or  two  assistants  in  summer,  cultivates  the 
forty,  sixty,  or  eighty  acres  of  which  he  holds  the  fee 
simple.  There  will  be  opportunities,  also,  for  the  success- 
ful application  of  another  class  of  labor  to  the  cultivation 
of  this  crop ;  the  owners  of  those  large  tracts  of  from 
three  hundred  to  three  and  four  thousand  acres,  having  no 
means  of  cultivating  such  a  breadth,  will  be  very  willing 
to  rent  it  to  any  industrious  person  who,  without  capital, 
has  a  disposition  to  work,  and  the  proprietor  -will  receive 
his  pay  in  a  share  of  the  crop  raised.  As  soon  as  the 
composure  of  society  is  such  as  to  give  ample  security  to 
both  life  and  property,  and  such  is  believed  to  be  the  case 
by  the  Northern  and  European  States,  there  must  be  a 
large  influx  of  both  population  and  wealth  into  the  cotton 
region.  These  accessions  to  society  then  will  naturally  be 
divided  into  three  general  classes. 


166  COTTON    CULTURE. 

First — The  large  capitalist  and  the  joint  stock  com- 
panies of  Northern  cities,  who  will  engage  in  cotton 
raising  with  the  same  energy,  the  same  skill,  and  the  same 
generous  appropriation  of  funds  which  have  characterized 
their  operations  in  coal  mines,  railroads,  oil  wells  in  Penn- 
sylvania, and  stamping  mills  in  the  Rocky  Mountains. 

Second — A  larger  class  will  be  those  who  bring  some 
capital,  a  large  amount  of  intelligence,  sagacity,  and  in- 
dustry, and  who  propose  to  cultivate  cotton  farms  where 
this  shall  be  a  specialty,  but  by  no  means  an  exclusive 
crop.  This  class  are  the  best  that  can  migrate  to  any 
country,  and  if  they  go  South  in  any  considerable  num- 
bers, they  will  soon  impose  a  law  of  their  own  upon  so- 
ciety. 

Third — A  class  much  larger  than  either  of  the  two  men- 
tioned above  will  be  the  common  laborer,  the  impoverish- 
ed American,  the  German,  the  Irish,  and  eventually  the 
Chinese,  who  will  engage  in  the  labor  of  tilling  and  har- 
vesting the  crop  in  precisely  the  same  spirit  as  that  in 
which  they  have  built  railroads,  tunneled  mountains,  ex- 
cavated canals,  and  removed  the  fertilizing  deposits  upon 
the  Lobos  Islands  to  the  wheat  fields  and  the  gardens  of 
England  and  America.  A  majority  of  them,  probably, 
will  be  employed  by  the  large  capitalists  and  the  stock 
companies;  others  more  thrifty  and  self-reliant  will,  at 
first,  find  employment  with  the  small  producers,  and  from 
this  will  soon  come  to  be  themselves  planters  on  soil 
which  they  have  earned  by  hard  labor. 

There  are  certain  parts  of  the  cotton  growing  regions 
which  are  especially  suited  to  each  of  these  classes,  and 
this  treatise  cannot,  perhaps,  be  concluded  by  anything 
more  useful  or  practical  than  a  few  suggestions  to  each  of 
these  various  classes  of  immigrants,  the  advice,  if  such  it 
may  be  called,  being  directed,  mainly,  to  such  questions 
as  naturally  arise  with  regard  to  soil,  climate,  salubrity, 
facility  of  transportation,  and  social  surroundings. 


COTTON   CULTURE.  167 

The  large  capitalist  and  the  joint  stock  company  who 
go  into  the  cotton  business  precisely  as  they  would  into  an 
oil  speculation,  or  a  silver  mine,  will,  of  course,  make  ev- 
ery other  consideration  bend  to  that  of  profit.  The  ques- 
tion with  them  will  be,  where  and  how  to  produce  cotton 
in  such  a  way  that  a  hundred  thousand  dollars  invested 
in  the  business  will  yield  from  twenty-five  to  fifty  thousand 
dollars  annual  returns.  The  salubrity  of  a  country,  the 
agreeableness  of  the  inhabitants  as  neighbors,  the  distance 
from  schools,  churches,  and  villages,  are  matters  of  minor 
importance  with  those  who  are  seeking  principally  the  al- 
mighty dollar.  The  two  grand  requisites  which  the  cap- 
italist asks  for  in  order  to  make  a  profitable  investment, 
are  a  fertile  soil,  and  easy  and  cheap  access.  Of  course  he 
must  feel  himself,  to  a  great  extent,  secure  from  inunda- 
tion and,  if  possible,  from  the  ravages  of  insects.  He 
will  hardly  look  at  any  other  lands  than  rich  alluvions,  of 
which  there  is  a  great  abundance  throughout  the  cotton 
belt.  He  will  find  the  requisite  degree  of  fertility  in  any 
of  the  superior  cotton  lands  which  are  capable  of  produc- 
ing a  bale  or  more  per  acre,  without  manure  and  without 
rotation.  These  on  the  tinted  map,  which  faces  Part  II., 
Chapter  L,  are  colored  red.  By  examining  that  map,  it 
will  be  seen  that  four  of  the  Gulf  States  furnish  a  large 
body  of  land  of  this  description,  and  his  choice  will  nat- 
urally be  made  of  one  of  these  four  States,  Alabama,  Missis- 
sippi, Louisiana,  including  the  southeastern  corner  of  Ar- 
kansas, and  Texas.  The  superior  lands  of  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia  are  much  more  limited  in  extent,  held  at 
higher  figures,  and  not  so  much  in  market.  This  is  true 
to  quite  an  extent  of  that  admirable  body  of  black  land 
in  Alabama  which  lies  between  the  two  main  rivers  of  that 
State,  the  Alabama  and  the  Tombigbee,  and  which  is  fully 
described  in  the  chapter  connected  with  the  cotton  map. 
As  regards  health,  these  cotton  fields  of  Middle  Alabama 
are  more  desirable  than  any  other  rich  lands  in  the  South, 


168  COTTOX   CULTURE. 

unless  it  be  the  black  prairies  of  Texas,  which  they  very 
much  resemble.  They  are  entirely  secure  from  overflow 
and  quite  easy  of  access  both  by  river  navigation  and 
railroad ;  at  least,  the  access  to  Mobile  and  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  is  ready.  The  objection  in  that  regard  is,  that 
communication  towards  the  North  is  circuitous  and  ex- 
pensive, and  in  a  few  years  another  serious  objection  with 
a  company  or  capitalist  that  proposes  to  connect  the  man- 
ufacture with  the  production  of  cotton,  will  be  the  lack 
of  fuel.  Coal,  said  to  be  bituminous  in  quality  and  very 
excellent,  exists  in  Alabama.  "  A  vein  of  this  coal  is  first 
seen,"  says  De  Bow  in  his  Industrial  Resources,  "  in  the 
bed  of  the  Black  Warrior  River,  near  Tuscaloosa,  and  pur- 
sues a  north-east  direction  until  it  crosses  the  Alabama  and 
Coosa  Rivers  at,  or  just  above,  their  falls,  and  probably 
thence  passes  into  Georgia."  But  the  bed  has  never  been 
worked  to  any  considerable  extent,  and  it  is  still  problem- 
atical whether  it  is  sufficient  in  width  and  dip  to  furnish 
large  amounts.  At  present,  on  the  Southern  borders  of 
this  triangle  of  land  there  are  extensive  forests  which,  for 
some  years  at  least,  will  supply  all  necessary  fuel  for  man- 
ufacturing and  domestic  purposes ;  so  that  the  difficulty 
suggested  is  by  no  means  formidable  or  insuperable.  It 
is  simply  a  matter  to  be  taken  into  consideration  by  the 
capitalist,  who  may  be  seeking  an  investment  in  cotton 
lands,  which  shall  be  in  all  respects  most  fortunate  and 
judicious.  In  the  Trans-Mississippi  region,  that  is  to  say, 
in  the  river  bottoms  and  black  prairies  of  Texas,  there  is 
presented  another  large  body  of  superior  lands,  similar  to 
those  of  Alabama  in  the  color  of  the  soil,  almost  identi- 
cally situated  in  regard  to  corhmunication  with  the  Gulf, 
and  capable  of  satisfying  any  one  as  to  their  depth  of  loam 
and  the  permanence  of  their  fertility.  They  are  some- 
what larger  in  extent  than  those  of  Alabama,  and  have 
the  advantage  of  being  virgin  soil,  the  greater  part  of 
which  has  never  felt  the  share.  It  is  less  favorably  situ- 


•         COTTON   CULTURE.  169 

ated,  however,  with  respect  to  moisture,  especially  the 
western  part.«  The  seasons  of  Alabama  are  such,  that  all 
crops  that  can  be  cultivated  in  that  climate  grow  well  and 
come  to  maturity.  In  Texas,  particularly  Western  Texas, 
there  is  moisture  enough  for  cotton  and  for  grass,  but 
three  years  out  of  five  the  corn  crop  is  a  failure  for  want 
of  rain.  The  objection  suggested  to  the  best  lands  of 
Alabama,  that  they  are  difficult  of  access  from  the  North, 
applies  with  still  greater  force  to  the  cotton  region  of 
Texas.  Railroads  from  Yicksburg  and  Memphis  have 
partially  penetrated  to  those  regions  from  the  east  and 
north-east,  but  land  carriage  of  a  crop  so  bulky  as  cotton 
for  a  distance  of  four  hundred  or  five  hundred  miles  is  so 
tedious  and  expensive  as  to  be  well  nigh  impracticable  on 
anything  like  a  large  scale.  On  the  other  hand  these 
lands,  considering  their  very  fine  quality,  are  cheap ;  they 
can  be  obtained  for  about  a  hundred  per  cent,  less  than 
lands  of  equal  intrinsic  value  in  the  older  States.  From 
ten  to  twenty-five  dollars  per  acre,  according  to  situation, 
will  place  the  capitalist  in  possession  of  lands  admirably 
suited  to  his  purposes.  How  far  cheapness  on  the  one 
hand  outweighs  remoteness  on  the  other,  and  to  what  extent 
intrinsic  value  is  offset  by  difficulty  of  access,  are  matters 
about  which  good  business  men  will  differ.  If  a  perma- 
nent investment  is  sought,  and  it  is  proposed  to  unite 
manufactures  with  agriculture,  the  want  of  fuel  would  be 
eventually  a  more  embarrassing  question  in  Texas  than  in 
Alabama.  According  to  Haldeman's  revised  edition  of 
Taylor's  work  on  the  Coal  Regions  of  the  United  States, 
coal  exists  on  the  Trinity  River  two  hundred  miles  above 
Galveston,  near  Nacogdoches,  and  also  near  Austin,  in 
considerable  quantities;  but  like  the  carbonaceous  de- 
posits of  Alabama,  those  of  Texas  have  never  been  work- 
ed, and  it  is  doubtful  whether  they  will  be  able  to  supply 
the  place  for  fuel  of  the  pine  forests  of  which  there  is 
great  extent  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  State. 
8 


170  COTTON   CULTURE. 

These  facilities  for  cotton  growing  and  attractions  to 
capitalists  in  the  two  States  which  lie  to  tbe  right  and  to 
the  left  of  the  region  that  drains  into  the  lower  Mississippi 
Valley  have  been  first  discussed,  in  order  to  show  that  the 
last  mentioned  section  presents  decidedly  a  more  attrac- 
tive field  than  either. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  this  teeming  valley  and  examine  that 
part  of  it  which  lies  below  Memphis,  with  a  view  to  in- 
vestments in  cotton  planting.  From  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi  up  to  where  it  receives  the  waters  of  Red  Riv- 
er, the  banks  of  the  stream,  though  inexhaustibly  fertile, 
are  unsuited  to  cotton.  That  part  of  Louisiana  which  lies 
south  of  Red  River,  is  the  sugar  bowl  of  the  Union ;  the 
soil  is  not  sufficiently  light  and  sandy  for  cotton.  It  is  a 
firm,  strong,  tenacious,  clayey  loam,  rich  in  vegetable 
mould,  the  natural  growth  of  which  is  cypress,  live  oak 
and  palmetto,  and  cotton,  when  planted  there,  presents  a 
rank  and  luxurious  growth ;  but  the  vigor  of  the  plant 
does  not  expend  itself  upon  the  fruit,  as  is  the  case  a  hun- 
dred miles  farther  north.  At  Red  River  the  cotton  lands 
commence ;  the  lowest  part  of  the  Red  River  valley,  for 
seventy-five  miles  before  it  empties  into  the  Mississippi,  is 
almost  an  unbroken  swamp.  The  land  is  of  the  greatest 
fertility,  but  is  covered  almost  every  year  by  inundations, 
the  water  standing  upon  it  in  some  places  three  inches 
deep,  and  in  others  twenty  feet,  and  depositing  annually  a 
layer  of  fine  fertilizing  mud.  If  some  way  could  be  de- 
vised for  redeeming  this  part  of  the  Red  River  valley  from 
annual  overflow,  several  hundred  thousand  acres  of  land, 
as  rich  as  the  bottoms  of  the  Nile,  would  be  added  to  the 
cotton  lands  of  Louisiana.  Ascending  the  stream  we  find, 
in  the  vicinity  of  Alexandria,  and  for  a  short  distance  up 
the  valley,  a  group  of  sugar  plantations ;  above  these,  as 
far  up  as  Shreveport,  and  for  a  hundred  miles  beyond,  in 
Arkansas  and  Texas,  cotton  alone  is  planted.  Among  the 
superior  cotton  lands  of  the  South,  those  of  Red  River 


COTTON   CULTURE.  171 

stand  preeminent ;  they  are  easily  protected  from  overflow, 
the  soil  is  an  alluvion,  as  rich  in  the  elements  of  vegetable 
life  at  the  depth  of  fifty  feet  as  at  the  surface ;  the  seasons 
are  well  suited  to  the  growth  of  corn  and  various  other 
edible  crops;  and  this  magnificent  valley  is  flanked  on 
either  side  by  a  wide  extent  of  pine  forests,  veined  with 
narrow  but  fertile  creek  bottoms,  affording  a  broad  range 
for  the  stock  of  river  plantations,  and  a  supply  of  fuel 
that  it  will  take  generations  to  exhaust.  The  objections 
to  this  country  are  the  miasms  of  the  river  bottom  and 
the  absence  of  good  water,  requiring  the  construction  of 
a  great  number  of  cisterns,  or  of  arrangements  for  filtrat- 
ing the  river  water ;  but  with  all  due  allowance  for  these 
discounts,  there  are  no  lands  in  the  world  which  offer 
greater  inducements  than  these  of  Red  River,  to  the  large 
capitalist  or  the  enterprising  stock  company  who  aspire  to 
brand  their  cotton  bales  by  the  thousand.  A  bale  and  a 
half  and  two  bales  per  acre  is  no  uncommon  yield ;  for 
something  like  eight  months  in  the  year  the  access  to  New 
Orleans  and  the  Gulf  by  steamboats  is  unembarrassed. 
No  part  of  the  whole  Southern  country  can  present  so 
many  instances  of  magnificent  fortunes,  accumulated  by  a 
few  years  industry,  as  might  have  been  found  in  1860,  in 
passing  as  the  traveler  did  for  four  hundred  miles  from 
Alexandria  up  through  a  series  of  superb  planting  estates. 
If,  instead  of  descending  Red  River  for  the  purpose 
of  reaching  the  Mississippi,  the  traveler  should  pass 
directly  east  from  Shreveport,  in  the  direction  of  Vicks- 
burg,  he  would  for.  some  seventy-five  miles  ride  through 
pine  woods  broken  here  and  there  by  a  little  strip 
of  fertile  land.  This  section  is  marked  green  on  the 
cotton  map.  On  approaching  the  valley  of  the  Ouach- 
ita,  the  scene  undergoes  a  sudden  and  total  change. 
The  pine  hills  suddenly  stop,  the  growth  becomes  cy- 
press, cane,  sycamore,  sweet  gum,  tupelo  gum,  and 
poplar,  all  indicative  of  the  richest  soil  and  the  most 


172  COTTON    CULTURE. 

perfect  adnptation  to  the  growth  of  cotton.  These  lands 
extend  eastward  to  the  waters  of  the  Mississippi,  a  dis- 
tance of  some  sixty  miles.  Here,  at  Vicksburg,  we  may 
pass  over  into  the  State  of  Mississippi,  and  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  river,  as  we  ascend,  there  is  a  similar  body  of 
land  from  twenty-five  to  forty  miles  in  width,  and  extend- 
ing all  the  way  from  Vicksburg  to  Memphis.  The  first, 
and  we  may  say  almost  the  only  question  which  the  capi- 
talist will  ask  with  reference  to  this  entire  tract  of  land  is : 
What  parts  of  this  unequaled  soil  are  exempt  from  annual 
inundation  ?  The  facilities  for  transportation  are  almost 
unparalleled;  on  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of 
plantations  there  would  be  no  practical  difficulty  in  build- 
ing the  gin-house  or  the  factory  in  such  a  way  that  the 
bales  of  cotton  might  be  allowed  to  slide  directly  from  the 
press-room  to  the  deck  of  a  steamboat.  The  soil  here  is 
quite  uniform  in  the  degree  of  its  fertility,  as  may  be  seen 
by  the  uniform  growth  with  which  it  is  covered.  It  may 
be  remarked,  also,  that  the  disasters  of  the  late  war  have 
fallen  heavy  upon  this  region,  deranging  titles,  divesting 
estates,  and  placing  immense  bodies  of  these  lands  within 
easy  reach  of  capital.  The  plantations  which  lie  directly 
upon  the  Mississippi  have  this  advantage,  that  they  are  in 
easy  and  immediate  communication  with  the  great  cities 
of  the  Northwest,  so  that  the  produce  of  these  lands  could 
be  taken  at  once  either  up  or  down  the  river,  and  discharg- 
ed at  St.  Louis,  at  New  Orleans,  at  Memphis,  at  Louisville, 
or  Cincinnati,  according  to  the  drift  of  commerce  and  the 
facilities  for  manufacture.  An  establishment  such  as  is 
described  in  Chapter  V,  Part  II,  of  this  Treatise,  might 
be  located  in  Missouri,  in  Southern  Illinois,  in  Western 
Tennessee,  or  on  the  Ohio  River,  and  receive  its  supplies 
of  cotton  in  the  seed  from  plantations  five  hundred  miles 
distant,  and  the  freight  be  so  moderate  as  to  be  more  than 
offset  by  the  cheapness  of  labor  and  the  abundance  of 
breadstuff's  in  the  more  northern  situations.  There  is  no 


COTTON   CULTURE.  ITS 

difficulty  at  all  with  regard  to  fuel  in  all  this  region ;  the 
entire  valley  is  covered  by  a  dense  forest  growth,  the  re- 
moval of  which,  for  purposes  of  fuel,  will  probably  be 
found  quite  too  slow  to  meet  the  demand  for  more  open 
land ;  and  when  all  the  forests  near  the  front  are  cut  away, 
a  flat  boat,  loaded  with  several  hundred  tons  of  coal,  can 
be  floated  down  from  the  upper  Ohio  and  landed  at  any 
point  along  the  great  river  for  a  few  cents  more  per  bush- 
el than  would  be  its  cost  at  Cincinnati. 

Everything  in  the  situation  and  in  the  natural  sur- 
roundings and  facilities  afforded  by  this  region,  seems  to 
point  to  operations  to  be  conducted  on  a  large  scale, 
with  command  of  ample  capital ;  all  the  imjflrovements 
of  modern  ingenuity  and  business  enterprise  being 
made  to  contribute  to  magnificent  results,  where  the 
inexhaustible  fertility  of  the  soil,  taken  in  connection 
with  the  constant  and  cheap  access  to  all  other  parts 
of  the  country,  shall  present  a  combination  of  agri- 
cultural and  manufacturing  skill  which  has  never  yet  been 
equalled  on  this  continent.  Here  is  a  soil  and  climate 
perfectly  adapted  to  the  growth  of  cotton,  in  connection 
with  the  sources  of  a  motive  power  inexhaustible  as  the 
coal  beds  of  the  West,  and  all  washed  by  the  waters  of  a 
mighty  inland  ocean  so  deep  that  the  Great  Eastern  might 
be  floated  a  thousand  miles  inland,  and  then  steam  direct 
from  the  gin-houses  that  will  dot  the  bank  of  the  mighty 
stream  to  the  Liverpool  docks. 

But  these  rank  and  wide  alluvions,  teeming  with  luxuri- 
ant vegetable  growth,  are  not  the  only  cotton  lands  of  the 
South.  There  are  sections  which  are  as  attractive  to  the 
farmer  of  moderate  means,  who  desires  to  establish  a 
Southern  home,  as  the  former  to  the  capitalist  hunting  for 
a  lucrative  investment.  The  grand  objection  to  the  great- 
er part  of  the  very  fertile  lands  above  described,  is  that 
they  are  unsuitable  for  homes  and  as  locations  for  family 
residences.  The  surface  is  commonly  a  dead  level ;  the 


174  COTTOX   CULTURE. 

water,  except  that  which  descends  from  the  clouds,  never 
good;  the  air  often  loaded  with  feverish  miasms  and 
swarming  with  nmsquitoes.  He  who  seeks  a  suitable 
place  where  he  may  build  him  a  home,  in  an  air  that  is  free 
and  wholesome ;  where  the  water  is  pure  and  abundant ; 
the  scenery  not  without  some  picturesque  attractions,  and 
the  social  surroundings  agreeable,  will  not  select  an  allu- 
vial tract.  By  reference  to  the  cotton  map  in  the  early 
part  of  this  Treatise,  a  large  breadth  of  country  will  ap- 
pear tinted  yellow ;  this  indicates  hill  lands  where,  in  gen- 
eral, the  soil,  without  special  treatment,  does  not  yield  a 
bale  to  the  acre,  but  where  the  other  conditions  of  com- 
fort and  w^ll-being  are  much  more  easily  supplied.  These 
are  the  sections  that  should  be  visited  by  the  man  who 
proposes  to  buy  a  hundred  or  two  acres,  and  to  raise, 
among  other  crops,  twenty  or  thirty  bales  of  cotton. 
Perhaps  the  first  locality  that  will  attract  a  man  with 
views  and  plans  of  this  character,  will  be  the  country  south 
of  Nashville,  bounded  on  the  east  by  the  Cumberland 
Mountains,  and  on  the  west  by  the  valley  of  the  Lower  Ten- 
nessee. There  is  no  first  class  cotton  land  here  except,  per- 
haps, a  few  narrow  strips  along  the  river  bank  in  North 
Alabama.  The  seasons  here  are  too  short  for  the  produc- 
tion of  full  crops,  but  in  a  great  number  of  minds  this  cir- 
cumstance would  be  considered  as  more  than  offset  by  the 
extreme  beauty  of  Middle  Tennessee,  the  lovely  slopes  of 
emerald,  the  noble  wealth  of  oaken  forests,  the  clear  run- 
ning streams,  the  perfect  healthiness  of  the  climate,  and 
the  high  tone  of  social  refinement  and  morality  that  per- 
vades the  community. 

Another  redeeming  feature  by  all  means  deserves  men- 
tion. With  the  Tennessee  farmer,  cotton  is  only  one  of  sev- 
eral crops  which  he  can  successfully  cultivate ;  the  land 
produces  excellent  tobacco.  A  few  years  ago  Tennessee 
was  the  leading  State  in  the  growth  of  corn.  The  apple, 
pear,  and  peach  tree,  flourish ;  hemp  is  a  profitable  crop, 


COTTON    CULTTJEE.  175 

and  wheat  is  largely  raised.  The  titles  to  lands  have  been 
considerably  disturbed  by  the  war,  and  there  are  a  large 
number  of  acres  in  every  town  that  can  be  obtained  at 
moderate  prices.  Except  in  a  few  instances  the  lands  of 
Tennessee  are  divided  into  tracts  of  moderate  size,  seven- 
ty-one acres  being  the  average  of  improved  land  in  each 
farm,  so  that  the  man  of  moderate  means  who  is  looking 
for  a  farm  where  he  can,  in  a  favorable  season,  raise  a  few 
thousand  pounds  of  cotton  with  most  of  the  other  Ameri- 
can crops,  need  not  pass  south  of  the  Tennessee  River  in 
his  search.  The  same  remarks  here  made  of  Middle  Ten- 
nessee apply  with  some  modifications  to  the  north-eastern 
counties  of  Mississsippi,  and  the  northern  pa^ts  of  Ala- 
bama and  Georgia.  Much  of  the  surface  here  is  broken 
and  sterile ;  in  many  counties  wheat  is  the  leading  crop, 
but  nearly  every  farmer  raises  a  little  cotton.  The  land- 
scapes are  not  so  attractive  as  those  of  Middle  Tennessee, 
nor  the  water  so  good,  there  being,  in  this  respect,  wide 
differences  in  adjoining  counties.  The  northern  and  par- 
ticularly the  north-western  counties  of  Arkansas  are  ad- 
mirably adapted  both  as  to  soil,  climate,  and  the  degree 
of  moisture,  to  the  wants  of  the  cotton  farmer  as  distin- 
guished from  the  cotton  planter.  The  present  objection 
of  remoteness  and  difficulty  of  access  is  being  rapidly 
overcome  by  the  building  of  railroads ;  there  is  no  part  of 
the  entire  South  where  the  man  of  moderate  means  can 
obtain,  on  better  terms,  a  tract  of,  say  two  hundred  acres, 
on  which  he  may  grow  corn,  wheat,  oats,  potatoes  of  both 
kinds,  and  send  to  market  from  ten  to  twenty  bales  of  cot- 
ton, from  which  to  realize  the  principal  part  of  his  clear 
income.  As  farming  can  be  successfully  combined  with 
cotton  growing  in  the  sections  just  mentioned,  so  the  joint 
production  of  cotton  and  beef  is  eminently  practicable  in 
a  wide  range  of  counties  in  the  northern  part  of  Texas. 
They  are  mostly  prairie  lands,  where  stock-raising  is  the 
first  and  the  natural  occupation  of  the  inhabitants ;  but 


176  COTTON    CULTURE. 

the  soil  and  climate  both  are  well  adapted  to  cotton.  That 
region  is  still,  for  the  most  part,  wild  and  sparsely  inhab- 
ited ;  lands  of  great  intrinsic  value  can  be  obtained  at 
very  moderate  prices,  the  average  not  rising  above  five 
dollars  an  acre. 

The  immigrant  who  carries  into  the  cotton  growing 
States  no  capital  but  his  two  hands,  must,  of  course,  at 
first,  be  almost  wholly  governed  in  the  selection  of  his 
field  of  labor  by  the  grand  consideration  of  demand. 
Waiving  all  other  questions,  the  laborer  will  be  certain  to 
go  where  he  can  get  the  highest  wages ;  and  the  large 
planter,  the  capitalist,  or  the  joint  stock  company,  who 
are  in  possession  of  a  tract  of  alluvial  soil  on  some  of  the 
great  navigable  streams,  will  oiFer  him  the  greatest  in- 
ducements. With  cotton  at  thirty  cents  a  pound,  on  a 
soil  that  produces  a  bale  and  more  to  the  acre,  there  is  no 
reason  why  the  laborer  should  not  receive  handsome  wages ; 
the  cotton  grower  who  pays  two  dollars  a  day  to  a  good 
hand  can,  if  bis  crop  succeeds,  clear  over  two  hundred 
dollars  on  each  hand.  When  cotton  declines  in  price,  the 
value  of  labor  in  the  cotton  crop  must  fill ;  but  as  long  as 
it  continues  at  the  present  high  figure,  there  is  no  reason 
why  the  laborer  should  not  enjoy  the  benefit  of  it  as  well 
as  the  land-owner  or  the  speculator.  The  more  intelligent 
and  thrifty  a  laborer  is,  the  more  rapidly  will  he  rise  from 
the  position  of  a  hireling ;  there  is  no  need  that  the  indus- 
trious and  economical  working  man  should  long  remain 
landless.  The  savings  of  a  single  year  will  enable  him  to 
buy  as  much  land  as  he  can  till  in  cotton ;  as  soon  as  he 
can  secure  a  title  or  get  legal  possession  of  fifteen  acres 
and  a  mule,  he  can  begin  to  be  independent,  and  from  this 
beginning,  hard  work,  economy,  and  thrift  will,  in  a  few 
years,  make  him  a  hundred-bale  planter.  It  should  be  re- 
marked, however,  that  much  precaution  is  required  if  he 
would  avoid  loss  of  time  and  the  impairing  of  his  consti- 
tution by  sickness.  The  rich  cotton  lands  are,  generally 


COTTOX    CULTURE.  177 

speaking,  malarious ;  chill  and  fever,  to  some  extent,  he 
cannot  remain  exempt  from,  but  two  or  three  simple  rules, 
strictly  observed,  will  enable  the  laborer  on  swamp  land 
to  retain  his  health  in  a  large  proportion  of  cases. 

First — Xo  night  work.  The  air  of  a  malarious  bottom 
is  healthy  enough  while  the  sun  falls  upon  it,  but  at  dusk 
the  poison  begins  to  settle  and  enters  the  system  through 
the  pores  as  well  as  through  the  lungs. 

Second — Flannel  next  to  the  skin  the  year  round.  It  is 
more  important  in  southern  than  in  northern  climates,  be- 
cause the  contrast  between  the  temperature  of  mid-day 
and  midnight  is  much  greater. 

Third — At  the  time  of  the  early  frosts  and  throughout 
the  winter,  the  laborer  should,  by  the  terms  of  his  con- 
tract, be  furnished  with  a  cup  of  hot  coffee  early  in  the 
morning.  Xo  other  drink  is  so  well  suited  to  counteract 
the  febrile  tendencies  of  that  season ;  it  is  far  more  effec- 
tual and  less  mischievous  than  any  alcoholic  drink. 

With  regard  to  the  summer  heat  of  the  more  elevated 
and  northerly  parts  of  the  Gulf  States,  Arkansas  and  Ten- 
nessee, we  find  the  line  of  mean  summer  temparature  start- 
ing from  near  the  centre  of  the  coast  of  North  Carolina, 
passing  nearly  westward*  through  the  centre  of  South 
Carolina  and  Georgia ;  thence  it  turns  northward  through 
Northern  Alabama  across  Tennessee  and  the  western  ex- 
tremity of  Kentucky  into  Southern  Illinois.  Thence  it 
bears  southward  again,  through  Southern  Missouri  and 
Northern  Arkansas. 

The  Anglo-Saxon  has  never  considered  it  any  particular 
hardship  to  till  the  soil  in  Missouri,  yet  its  summer  heat  is 
as  great  as  that  of  Middle  and  Northern  Geopgia,  and  the 
temperature  and  health  of  Southern  Illinois  will  not  com- 
pare favorably  with  those  of  Middle  Tennessee.  A  sur- 
vey of  the  map  connected  with  this  volume  will  show  a 
broad  tract  of  cotton  country  lying  in  Georgia,  South 
Carolina,  Northern  Mississippi,  Alabama,  Arkansas,  and 
8* 


178  COTTON   CULTURE. 

Texas,  the  land  of  farms,  not  of  plantations,  on  which  a 
million  and  a  half  of  bales  have  been  produced  in  a  given 
year,  of  which  a  very  large  proportion  was  grown  by  white 
labor  previous  to  the  changes  inaugurated  in  1861. 

Not  more  than  half  of  the  surface  of  this  region  is 
likely  ever  to  be  brought  under  the  plow.  As  a  general 
rule,  the  productive  capacity  of  the  better  half  of  these 
lands  may  be  put  at  three  hundred  pounds  per  acre  of  gin- 
ned cotton,  although  with  intelligent  and  scientific  culture, 
the  average  might  easily  be  from  four  to  five  hundred 
pounds. 

Let  us  now  see  what  advantages  the  small  farmer,  who 
goes  there  for  the  purpose  of  engaging  in  the  production 
of  cotton,  will  have  over  the  Western  farmer.  He  can,  in 
general,  get  a  hundred  acres  of  this  land  for  a  sum  rang- 
ing somewhere  between  five  hundred  and  two  thousand 
dollars,  according  to  the  state  of  cultivation  and  quality 
of  the  buildings.  Allowing  five  hundred  more  for  stock 
and  tools,  he  can  commence  cotton  growing.  On  the  sup- 
position that  his  field  force  amounts  to  four  hands,  at  least 
during  the  busy  season,  he  will  be  justified  in  planting 
about  thirty  acres  in  cotton.  These  thirty  acres  should 
produce  him  twenty  bales  of  cotton  of  four  hundred 
pounds  each.  These,  at  twenty-five  cents  a  pound,  will 
bring  him  two  thousand  dollars,  of  which,  say  five  hun- 
dred may  go  for  labor,  leaving  him  fifteen  hundred  dollars 
as  profit.  Beside  the  cotton  crop,  he  can,  with  the  usual 
Northern  industry,  produce  food  enough  to  keep  all  the 
stock  necessary  on  such  a  place  and  bread  for  his  family.  As 
a  rule,  throughout  this  region,  stock,  unless  hard-worked, 
do  not  need  over  three  months'  feeding ;  in  many  sections 
not  two.  Here  we  shall  soon  see  Northern  economy,  the 
seed  no  longer  wasted  or  misapplied,  but  the  rich  oil  which 
composes  twelve  and  a  half  per  cent,  of  its  weight  ex- 
pressed and  turned  to  a  useful  purpose ;  the  land  no  longer 
exhausted  by  a  ruinous  system  of  culture,  but  the  manure 


COTTON   CTTLTUBE.  179 

returned,  and  the  cotton  farm  growing  richer  instead  of 
poorer  year  by  year.  With  increasing  population  manu- 
factures will  multiply,  and  most  of  the  coarser  fabrics  be 
woven  within  sight  of  the  field  where  the  staple  grows. 
Many  years  will  elapse  before  the  finer  fabrics  can  be  pro- 
duced as  successfully  as  they  can  be  in  the  great  mills  of 
Manchester  and  Lowell. 

The  experience  of  the  world,  since  the  outbreak  of  our 
civil  war,  has  established  the  great  superiority  of  North 
America  as  the  cotton  growing  region  of  the  globe.  The 
sceptre  of  King  Cotton  is  not  broken ;  it  has  merely 
shifted  hands. 

The  possible  future  of  cotton  culture,  as  compared  with 
the  past,  may  be  seen  from  the  fact,  that  of  all  this  vast 
region  which  has  been  so  minutely  described,  only  a  very 
small  fractional  part  has  ever  been  converted  into  cotton 
fields.  There  are  sixty-four  squares  on  a  checker-board. 
Xow  suppose  the  cotton  belt  to  be  that  checker-board,  and 
the  fields  actually  planted  in  cotton  would  represent  but 
one  square,  that  is,  one  sixty-fourth  part  only  of  the  "  cot- 
ton fields  of  America  "  are,  properly  speaking,  cotton  fields. 

This  statement  will  give  a  clearer  conception  than  any 
figures  of  the  comparative  infancy  of  cotton  culture  in  the 
United  States.  The  sheep  from  whose  fleeces  mankind 
derive  their  warmest  clothing,  dot  ten  thousand  hill-sides 
in  all  the  temperate  regions  of  the  earth.  The  Silk- worm, 
from  whose  golden  cocoon  man  makes  his  costliest  fabric, 
is  confined  to  no  zone  or  belt.  But  for  the  material  of  our 
cheapest  cloth  the  world  looks  to  America.  And  here 
millions  of  acres  of  virgin  and  inexhaustible  soil  await  the 
onward  march  of  the  grand  army  of  labor,  that  shall  level 
the  forests,  turn  the  prairie  sod,  plant,  cultivate  and  gather 
the  crop  whose  snowy  fibre,  twisted  by  billions  of  spindles, 

Shall  FORM  THE  CLOTHING  OF  THE  RACE. 


180  COTTON   CULTURE. 

CHAPTER      IX. 

COTTON  SEED,  COTTON  SEED  OIL,  COTTON  SEED  CAKE. 

BY  J.    K.    SYPHER,   ESQ. 

To  every  bale  of  cotton-lint,  weighing  400  pounds, 
there  are  produced  about  1400  pounds  of  seed.  Though 
for  many  years  no  good  use  was  made  of  the  cotton  seed 
that  accumulated  in  great  heaps  about  the  gin-houses,  it 
has  long  been  known  that  the  kernel  of  the  seed  is  rich  in 
oil.  As  early  as  1826,  a  gentleman  in  the  State  of  Vir- 
ginia constructed  a  small  machine  by  which  he  was  ena- 
bled to  express  from  crushed  cotton  seed  a  dark  red  oil, 
which,  when  burned  in  a  common  lard  oil  lamp,  gave  a 
fair  light.  No  practical  use  was  made  of  this  discovery, 
and  for  many  years  the  facts  thus  developed  were  known 
only  to  a  few  friends  of  the  original  experimenter.  When, 
however,  the  extensive  and  successful  production  of  cot- 
ton made  cotton  goods  so  very  cheap  that  the  production 
of  flax,  and,  consequently,  the  supply  of  flax  seed  greatly 
fell  away,  the  proprietors  of  linseed  oil  mills  began  to 
look  about  in  search  of  some  substitute  upon  which  to 
employ  their  crushers  and  presses.  "  Pea-nuts,"  "  castor 
beans,"  cotton  seed,  and  many  other  articles,  were  tested. 

These  experimenters  experienced  difficulties  which  me- 
chanical genius  subsequently  overcame.  When  the  seed 
of  Upland  cotton  comes  from  the  gin,  it  is  covered  with  a 
thick  coat  of  short  lint,  which  adheres  strongly  to  the  dry, 
hard  pericarp  that  surrounds  the  kernel,  or  meat,  in  the 
seed.  In  the  absence  of  any  contrivance  by  which  the 
lint-coating  and  pericarp  could  be  removed,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  grind  or  crush  the  seed  in  an  ordinary  burr- 
stone,  or  iron  mill,  and  to  put  the  whole  mass  into  the 
boxes  of  the  press.  The  oil  was  easily  forced  from  the 
broken  seed,  but  the  intermatting  lint  immediately  absorb- 
ed the  greater  portion  of  it.  In  the  experiments  made 


COTTON   CULTURE.  181 

with  the  seed  of  ,/Sea  Island  cotton,  to  which  the  lint  does 
not  adhere  closely,  and  which,  therefore,  may  be  delivered 
from  the  gin  as  clean  as  the  pericarp  of  a  chestnut,  a  more 
satisfactory  yield  of  oil  was  obtained.  The  result,  how- 
ever, was  not  ybf  a  character  that  would  induce  manufac- 
turers to  engage  regularly  in  the  production  of  cotton-seed 
oil.  A  few  years  later,  mechanics  constructed  and  patent- 
ed machines  that  successfully  removed  the  lint  and  peri- 
carp from  the  kernel,  after  which,  by  means  of  a  revolv- 
ing screw,  the  hulled  seed  was  separated  from  the  trash. 

About  the  year  1855,  some  of  the  largest  linseed  oil 
mills  in  the  country  were  converted  into  cotton-seed  oil 
mills,  and  very  soon  new  and  extensive  establishments 
were  erected  expressly  for  the  manufacture  of  this  oil.  The 
principal  and  most  successful  of  these  mills  were  located, 
one  in  Providence,  R.  I.,  one  in  St.  Louis,  two  in  "New 
Orleans,  and  two  in  Memphis;  of  these  the  Providence, 
one  of  the  Xew  Orleans,  and  the  St.  Louis  mills  alone 
survived  the  war. 

The  supply  of  raw  material  for  these  establishments 
was  drawn  wholly  from  the  immediate  line  of  the  great 
navigable  water-courses.  The  mills  at  Xew  Orleans,  at 
Memphis,  and  that  at  St.  Louis,  readily  contracted  with 
the  steamboat  lines  to  carry  cotton-seed  at  very  low  rates 
of  freight  on  return  trips,  when  other  freight  in  that  di- 
rection was  very  scarce ;  the  Providence  Company  made 
similar  contracts  with  sailing  vessels  from  New  Orleans 
and  other  ports,  both  along  the  Atlantic  and  on  the  Gulf 
Coast.  There  was  never  any  lack  of  seed ;  for  all  these 
mills,  running  at  their  greatest  capacity,  could  not  con- 
sume the  seed  that  could  be  delivered,  conveniently,  upon 
the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  River  and  its  lower  tribu- 
taries. 

The  seed  was  purchased  only  by  weight,  and  was  usu- 
ally contracted  for  at  ton  rates.  The  price  varied,  before  the 
war,  from  four  dollars  to  eight  dollars  per  ton,  delivered 


182  COTTOX   CULTURE. 

in  sacks  upon  the  bank  of  the  river,  at  some  convenient 
landing ;  the  sacks  usually  contained  from  80  to  100 
pounds,  and  were  supplied  by  the  manufacturers,  who  sent 
them  to  the  planters.  When  cotton  seed  oil  mills  were 
first  erected  in  the  South,  the  planters,  who  had,  previous 
to  that  tune,  been  in  the  habit  of  allowing  their  cotton  seed 
to  rot  about  the  gin-houses,  were  suddenly  seized  with  the 
idea  that  this  seed  was  a  very  valuable  article  of  trade, 
and  that  the  demand  would  be  far  beyond  the  supply ; 
many,  therefore,  began  to  house  and  take  care  of  the  seed, 
and  held  large  quantities  at  prices  varying  from  eight  to 
twelve  dollars  a  ton ;  and,  for  a  few  years,  the  manufac- 
turers paid  as  high  as  ten  dollars  per  ton  for  the  seed  they 
consumed.  But  as  soon  as  they  learned  what  quantity  of 
seed  was  produced  for  each  bale  of  cotton  that  was  grown 
they  put  down  the  price ;  and,  in  1860,  more  seed  was 
offered  at  five  dollars  per  ton,  than  their  mills  could  have 
consumed  during  the  year. 

A  proper  mill  for  the  manufacture  of  oil  and  oil-cake 
from  cotton  seed,  should  consist  of  a  substantial  building 
having  three  and  a  half  stories  and  basement,  one  hundred 
feet  long  by  forty  to  fifty  wide.  The  engine  should  have 
power  in  proportion  to  the  proposed  capacity  of  the  fac- 
tory —  twenty  horse-power,  if  two  pairs  of  five-box 
hydraulic  presses  are  used.  The  hydraulic  presses  must 
be  placed  on  a  firm  foundation,  carefully  laid.  Heaters 
and  rollers  are  machines  made  by  the  same  machinists 
that  supply  the  presses  and  pumps.  Of  hullers,  the  ma- 
chines that  bear  the  same  relation  to  oil  that  gins  do 
to  lint,  there  are  two  or  three  patterns  that  will  do  the 
work,  though  the  best,  because  it  is  least  liable  to  get  out 
of  order  and  has  a  much  greater  capacity  than  any  other, 
is  one  invented  by  Abram  J.  Sypher,  for  some  time  an  en- 
gineer in  the  United  States  Navy.  This  machine  is  in  its 
appearance,  in  its  operation,  and  manner  of  receiving 
seed,  somewhat  similar  to  a  wheat  thresher.  The  seed 


COTTON   CULTURE.  183 

is  delivered  into  the  huller  by  an  endless  canvass  apron ; 
it  passes  under  a  cylinder  revolving  at  great  speed, 
armed  with  steel  blades,  and  surrounded  about  two-third's 
way  by  a  concave  box  also  armed  with  corresponding 
knives.  As  the  seed  is  forced  between  these,  the  pericarp, 
or  hull,  is  broken  and  forced  from  the  kernel.  The  mass  of 
crushed  seed  then  falls  into  a  great  revolving  sieve.  The 
kernels,  many  of  which  are  broken  into  fine  pieces,  pass 
through  the  meshes  of  the  wire  sieve,  and  the  pericarp,  to 
which  the  lint  adheres,  is  carried  away  and  delivered  into 
the  fire-room,  where  it  is  burned  under  the  boilers,  and 
affords  a  full  supply  of  good  fuel  for  the  use  of  the  estab- 
lishment. The  clean  seed  is  now  carried  by  means  of  a 
system  of  elevators  to  the  attic  story,  and  then  passes  down 
into  the  crushers  or  rollers.  These  eonsist  chiefly  of  two 
rollers  revolving  towards  each  other  with  unequal  veloci- 
ty, so  geared  as  to  produce  both  a  crushing  and  a  tearing 
effect  upon  the  seed.  The  meal,  as  the  seed  is  now  called, 
falls  to  the  bin  on  the  first  floor,  and  is  shoveled  into  the 
heater  by  the  pressman's  attendant.  The  heater  is  a  short, 
double  cylinder,  so  arranged  as  to  heat  the  meal  in  the  in- 
ner cylinder  by  steam,  which  circulates  in  the  space  be- 
tween the  inner  and  the  outer  walls.  Here  the  meal  is 
heated  until  the  water  is  converted  into  steam  and 
escapes;  the  hot  meal  is  then  placed  in  wedge-shape 
bags,  made  of  woolen  duck;  these  are  placed  in  hair 
books,  which  slide  into  the  boxes  of  the  press.  As  soon 
as  the  pressman  has  filled  all  the  books,  the  pump  is 
set  to  working,  and  the  tremendous  power  of  the  hydraul- 
ic press  soon  forces  out  the  liquid  oil  in  warm,  gushing 
streams.  Seven  minutes  up,  and  the  press  returns ;  the 
books  are  thrown  out,  the  duck  bags  are  stripped  from  the 
meal,  now  pressed  into  solid  cakes,  the  cakes  are  set  up  in 
racks  to  dry,  and  thus  the  operation  is  completed. 

From  the  seed  which  was  thrown  into  the  huller,  two 
merchantable  articles  are   produced  at  the  press,  crude 


184  COTTOX    CULTURE. 

cotton  seed  oil,  and  cotton  seed  cake.  After  the  oil  has 
cooled  down  to  atmospheric  temperature,  and  the  floating 
impurities  have  separated  from  it  and  settled  to  the  bottom 
of  the  tank,  it  is  of  a  deep  red  color,  and  weighs  about 
seven  and  a  half  pounds  to  the  gallon.  This  quality  of 
oil  found  a  market  among  oil  refiners,  who,  usually  by 
very  simple  processes,  removed  the  mechanical  impuri- 
ties and  destroyed  the  coloring  matter  so  as  to  produce  an, 
oil  of  a  rich  olive  color,  sweet  and  agreeable  to  the  taste. 
Much  of  this  found  its  way  to  the  tables  of  our  first-class 
hotels  and  private  families.  As  a  substitute  for  olive  oil, 
it  has  no  equal,  and  when  flavored  by  the  addition  of 
genuine  olive  it  is  much  superior  to  any  other  adulteration 
yet  produced.  The  chief  consumers  of  the  cotton  seed 
oil,  however,  are  the  soap-makers.  The  oil  was  purchased 
by  manufacturers  in  its  crude  state,  and  from  it  was  pro- 
duced almost  every  grade  of  soap,  from  the  cheapest  fam- 
ily, to  pure  white  castile,  and  the  finest  and  most  highly 
perfumed  toilet  soaps.  The  Philadelphia  manufacturers 
were  among  the  first,  and  always  the  largest,  consumers 
of  cotton  seed  oil  in  soap-making.  The  single  house  of 
Thain  &  McKeone,  afterwards  McKeone,  Van  Haagen  & 
Co.,  consumed  more  than  one-half  of  all  the  cotton  seed 
oil  that  was  used  under  its  true  name  and  in  a  pure  state. 
These  gentlemen  discovered  a  very  simple  and  cheap 
method  of  refining  and  bleaching  the  oil,  and  were  thus 
enabled  to  produce  a  quality  of  cotton  seed  oil  as  clear  and 
as  limpid  as  pure  water.  Every  grade  of  the  oil  was 
thoroughly  tested  in  this  establishment,  and  efforts  were 
made  to  apply  it  to  every  possible  use.  At  one  time  the 
proprietors  hoped  to  make  it  one  of  the  most  profit- 
able articles  of  trade,  but,  after  the  most  thorough  and 
persistent  trials,  wherein  it  was  used  in  making  every  qual- 
ity of  soap  and  in  adulterating  all  of  the  vegetable  and 
some  of  the  heavier  animal  oils,  tested  as  a  lubricator,  as 
an  illuminator,  as  a  paint  oil  mixed  with  linseed  oil,  and  as 


COTTON   CULTURE.  185 

a  table  oil,  its  use  was  finally  abandoned  even  at  the  price 
of  fifty  cents  a  gallon. 

Practical  soap  makers  say,  the  quantity  of  stearine 
contained  in  cotton  seed  oil  is  insufficient  to  take  up  the 
quantity  of  resin  necessary  to  make  a  superior  quality 
of  family  soap.  In  the  manufacture  of  the  finest  qualities 
of  fancy  soaps,  it  seemed  to  be  a  first-class  stock.  But, 
after  the  soaps  of  all  grades  were  packed  in  boxes  and 
allowed  to  stand  a  few  months,  a  dark  brown  liquid,  of 
a  gummy  nature,  would  ooze  from  the  bars  and  cakes, 
and  the  soap  would  become  soft.  It,  therefore,  was  un- 
salable, and  hence  the  use  of  cotton  seed  oil  was  aban- 
doned. The  ablest  chemists  in  the  country  were  employed 
to  analyze  the  oil,  and  to  discover,  if  possible,  an  agent 
that  would  destroy  or  neutralize  this  unmanageable  ele- 
ment. These  efforts  of  science  were  unsuccessful,  though 
they  were  conducted  under  the  patronage  of  one  of  the 
largest  establishments  in  the  country  ;  soap-makers,  there- 
fore, concluded  that  a  firm,  durable  soap  could  not  be 
made  from  cotton  seed  oil. 

At  about  this  same  tune  a  series  of  experiments  made 
with  great  care,  by  Mr.  A.  W.  Harrison,  manufacturer  of 
various  grades  of  soap,  perfumery,  extracts,  ink  and  other 
articles,  in  Philadelphia,  resulted  much  more  favorably. 

Mr.  Harrison  says : 

"  In  the  years  1860  and  '61,  I  used  large  quantities  of 
cotton-seed  oil  in  the  manufacture  of  family  soap,  and 
found  it  to  possess  peculiar  and  valuable  qualities  for  that 
purpose. 

"  Considerable  skill  and  careful  manipulation  are  required 
for  the  production  of  hard  soap  from  this  oil ;  but,  after 
many  experiments,  I  succeeded  in  obtaining,  uniformly 
and  readily,  a  firm,  solid,  fine-grained  soap,  of  a  pale  yel- 
low or  cream  color,  and  of  the  highest  quality.  It  gives, 
without  the  use  of  resin  or  any  other  foreign  substance,  a 


186  COTTON   CULTURE. 

thick,  creamy  lather,  and  possesses  a  detergent  property 
superior  to  any  other  soap  known. 

"  In  order  to  test  its  washing  qualities  under  the  most 
adverse  circumstances,  I  prepared  a  piece  of  coarse  bag- 
ging by  saturating  it  with  grease  from  the  wheel  of  a  dray, 
rubbing  it  well  into  the  fabric  and  drying  it.  I  then  made 
a  strong,  cold,  salt  brine,  and  in  this  liquid,  with  the  cot- 
ton-seed oil  soap,  washed  the  bagging  perfectly  clean, 
with  little  labor,  leaving  the  fabric  uninjured.  I  know  of 
no  soap  that  will  endure  so  severe  a  test. 

"  As  a  shaving  soap  it  is  unsurpassed  for  its  rich  and 
emollient  lather.  The  oil  used  was  clarified,  of  a  pale 
straw  color ;  some  lots  were  almost  colorless. 

"  My  attempts  to  manufacture  extemporaneous  or  "  cold- 
made  soap,"  invariably  failed.  A  dark,  gummy  liquid, 
would  exude  from  the  soap  after  some  weeks  standing, 
which  rendered  it  unsalable." 

Mr.  Harrison  believes  refined  cotton-seed  oil,  at  sixty 
cents  a  gallon,  to  be  the  cheapest  and  most  durable  soap 
stock  known  to  commerce.  He  continued  to  use  it  freely 
as  long  as  it  could  be  obtained  in  large  quantities,  and,  up 
to  the  time  of  the  beginning  of  war  of  the  rebellion,  was 
the  second  largest  consumer  in  this  country. 

Notwithstanding  the  variety  of  uses  to  which  this  oil 
was  applied,  and  the  quantities  purchased  by  a  few  large 
dealers  and  manufacturers,  the  demand  was  never  fully  up 
to  the  supply ;  and  the  oil  pressers  always  worked  against 
a  dull  market,  and  often  were  overstocked  with  oil,  for 
which  they  could  find  no  purchasers.  At  this  time  about 
50,000  tons  of  seed  were  consumed  by  the  oil  mills,  yield- 
ing, at  the  rate  of  30  gallons  per  ton,  about  1,500,000  gal 
Ions  of  crude  oil.  Estimating  the  cotton  cro£  for  such 
portions  of  the  country  as  are  most  accessible  to  cheap 
transportation  at  3,000,000  bales,  the  seed  available  for 
oil-making  would  amount  to  1,500,000  tons,  yielding 
45,000,000  gallons  of  oil  annually.  The  first  and  great 


COTTON   CULTURE.  187 

necessity  therefore  is  to  find  a  more  general  use  for  this 
oil,  in  which  the  cotton  region  so  greatly  abounds.  As 
an  illuminator  it  is  not  equal  to  lard  oil ;  mixed  with  pe- 
troleum it  makes  a  medium  lubricator ;  painters  have  used 
it  either  pure  or  mixed  as  a  substitute  for  linseed  oil ;  oil 
dealers  have  mixed  it  with  lard  oil,  with  almond,  pea-nut, 
cocoa-nut,  and  with  olive  oil ;  but  this  surreptitious  mode 
of  treating  it  in  trade  gave  it  a  bad  name  in  commerce, 
and  hence  only  small  quantities  found  sale  under  the 
name  of  cotton-seed  oil,  except  to  a  few  soap-makers,  who 
purchased  it  and  used  it  in  its  true  name  and  character. 

The  refining  process  is  simple,  and,  after  a  little  practice, 
may  be  successfully  conducted  by  any  one  possessed  of  ordi- 
nary skill.  The  agent  employed  to  remove  the  impurities 
is  a  solution  of  the  soda  ash  of  commerce,  having  a 
strength  of  about  30  degrees.  The  oil  is  put  into  a  large 
metal  tank,  supplied  with  steam  pipes  for  heating,  and 
with  proper  apparatus  to  keep  the  oil  thoroughly  agitated. 
The  caustic  solution  and  the  oil,  when  mixed,  should  be 
at  the  temperatilre  of  the  atmosphere  in  the  factory,  and 
about  one  gallon  of  the  solution  should  be  put  into  ten 
gallons  of  oil,  mixed  in  'small  quantities,  at  intervals  of  a 
few  minutes.  The  mixture  should  then  be  slowly  heated 
up  to  100  degrees,  then  allowed  to  cool.  During  the 
pouring  in  of  the  solution,  and  while  the  mixture  is  being 
heated,  and  until  the  temperature  has  gone  down  nearly 
to  its  natural  state,  the  stirring  apparatus  should  be  kept 
in  motion.  The  oil  should  then  be  left  in  the  tank  at 
least  24  hours,  that  the  impurities  may  settle  to  the  bot- 
tom ;  then,  by  a  faucet  inserted  at  a  distance  of  several 
inches  from  the  bottom,  the  refined  oil  may  be  drawn  into 
a  wooden  tank  placed  in  the  basement,  where  it  will  sink 
to  a  still  lower  temperature,  and  deposit  a  purer  sediment 
in  the  bottom  of  the  tank.  If  the  process  has  been  con- 
ducted with  care,  the  refined  oil  will  be  perfectly  clear, 
and  of  a  rich  olive  color.  The  price  of  this  quality  of  oil 


188  COTTON   CULTURE. 

before  the  war  rated  at  from  sixty  to  seventy-five  cents 
per  gallon. 

The  ground  seed,  from  which  the  oil  has  been  expressed, 
is  known  to  commerce  as  "  cotton-seed  cake,"  and  is  con- 
sumed principally  in  feeding  cattle.  It  is  classed  by  gen- 
eral feeders  with  linseed  cake,  though  chemists  and  scien- 
tific dairymen  claim  for  it  a  superiority.  When  fed  to 
milch  cows,  it  increases  the  quantity  and  improves  the 
quality  of  the  milk ;  it  is  a  rapid  flesh  former,  and  the 
manure  of  the  stock  yard  where  cotton  seed  meal  is  fed 
is  of  a  very  superior  quality. 

The  following  observations  were  made  by  Professor 
Voelcker,  of  England,  on  the  result  of  an  analysis  of  sev- 
eral specimens  of  thin  decorticated  American  cotton-seed 
cake: 

1st. — The  proportion  of  oil  in  all  the  specimens  is  higher 
than  in  the  best  linseed  cake,  in  which  it  is  rarely  more 
than  12  per  cent.,  and  10  per  cent,  may  be  taken  as  aver- 
age. As  a  supplier  of  food,  cotton-cake  is  therefore  supe- 
rior to  linseed-cake. 

2d. — The  amount  of  oil  in  the  several  specimens  differs 
to  the  extent  of  5-|-  per  cent. — say  from  No.  7,  13.50,  to 
No.  2,  19.19. 

3d. — Decorticated  cake  contains  a  very  high  and  much 
larger  percentage  of  flesh-forming  matters  than  linseed- 
cake,  and  it  is  therefore  proper  to  give  to  young  stock  and 
milch  cows.  The  dung,  also,  is  very  valuable. 

4th. — In  comparison  with  linseed,  there  is  much  less 
mucilage  and  other  respiratory  matter  in  cotton-cake. 
This  is  compensated  by  the  larger  amount  of  oil. 

5th. — The  proportion  of  indigestible  woody  fibre  in  de- 
corticated cotton-cake  is  very  small,  and  not  larger  than 
in  the  best  linseed-cake! 

6th, — And  lastly,  it  may  be  observed  that  the  ash  of 


COTTOX   CULTURE.  189 

cotton-cake  is  rich  in  bony  materials,  and  amounts  to 
about  the  same  quantity  as  is  contained  in  other  oily  cakes. 

Dairymen  and  stock  feeders,  in  this  country,  where 
corn  and  root  vegetables  are  abundant  and  cheap,  were 
slow  to  try  experiments,  and  hence  could  not  be  induced 
to  use  the  cotton-seed  cake.  The  great  bulk  of  it  was 
therefore  shipped  to  Liverpool,  England,  where  it  found 
ready  sale  at  from  forty  to  forty-seven  dollars  per  ton. 
Small  quantities  were  fed  in  this  country,  and  a  few  manu- 
facturers of  fertilizers  used  it  to  mix  with  other  ingredients. 

The  cake  can  be  ground  into  fine  meal  in  a  corn  and  cob 
mill,  and,  in  this  state,  if  mixed  with  cut  straw  or  corn 
stalks  and  salted,  makes  a  very  superior  feed  for  cattle. 
This  is  the  proper  mode  of  treating  it.  The  farmers  and 
planters  in  the  South  might  thus,  at  small  expense,  convert 
the  corn  stalks  and  cobs  of  their  wide  fields  into  stacks 
and  bins  of  forage,  which,  when  made  palatable  to  their 
animals,  and  enriched  by  the  addition  of  cotton-seed  meal 
and  salt,  would  furnish  ample  supplies  during  the  winter 
and  spring  months,  and  save  vast  sums  of  money  now 
spent  i  n  the  purchase  of  hay  and  oats.  At  a  low  estimate,  the 
value  of  the  cotton  seed  which  hitherto  has  annually  been 
destroyed  in  the  Southern  States  would  have  amounted 
to  not  less  than  $7,000,000.  This  crude  material  might 
be  so  transformed  by  simple  processes  as  to  greatly  in- 
crease its  value,  and  supply  to  the  country,  hitherto  im- 
poverished by  its  destruction,  just  what  it  most  needs. 
If  the  discoveries  which  Mr.  A.  W.  Harrison  claims  to 
have  made  can  become  known  and  available  to  all  soap- 
makers,  then,  at  no  distant  time,  there  will  be  made  from 
the  cotton-seed  the  oils  for  ordinary  uses,  the  soap  for 
family  and  toilet  purposes ;  the  cake  meal  will  supply  good 
forage  for  the  plantation  stock,  and  a  superior  fertilizer 
for  the  soil ;  and  the  ashes  of  the  hulls  burned  under  the 
boilers,  will  yield  a  caustic  solution,  that  can  be  used  both 
in  refining  the  oil  and  in  the  manufacture  of  soap.  All 


190  COTTON   CULTURE. 

of  these  operations  are  exceedingly  simple,  and  may  be 
performed,  under  the  direction  of  a  skillful  superintendent, 
by  the  ordinary  laborers  that  are  found  in  any  of  the 
villages  and  cities  in  the  country. 


LIST    OF 


RURAL,     BOOKS 


PUBLISHED  AND  FOR  SALE  BY 


OEANGE     JUDD     &    CO., 
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g^T  Any  Book  on  this  list  will  be  forwarded,  post-paid,  to 
any  address  in  the  United  States,  (except  those  Territories  reached 
by  the  Overland  California  Mail  only,)  on  receipt  of  the  price. 


Allen's  (L.  F.)  Rural  Architecture.. $1  50 
Allen's  (11.  L.)  American  Farm  Book  1  50 
Allen's  (R.  L.)  Diseases  of  Domestic 

Animals 1  00 

American  Agricultural  Annual,paper  50 

"  «  cloth  75 

American  Horticaltural  Annual,paper  50 

"  "  "  cloth  75 

American  Bird  Fancier SO 

American  Pomology 300 

American  Rose  Culturist 30 

American  Weeds  and  Useful  Plants.  1  75 

Bement's  Rabbit  Fancier 30 

Bommer's  Method  of  Making  Manures  25 

Bonssingault's  Rural  Economy 1  60 

Breck's  New  Book  of  Flowers 175 

Bnist's  Flower  Garden  Directory. ...  1  50 
Bnist's  Family  Kitchen  Gardener...  1  00 
Chorlton's  Grape  Grower's  Guide. . .  75 

Cobbett's  American  Gardener 75 

Cole's  (S.  W.)  American  Fruit  Book  75 

Cole's  Veterinarian 75 

Copeland's  Country  Life,  8vo,  cloth.  5  00 
Cotton-Planter's  Manual,  (Turner)..  1  50 
Dadd's  (G.  H.)  Modern  Horse  Doctor  1  50 

Dadd's  American  Cattle  Doctor 1  50 

Dana's  Muck  Manual 1  25 

Do»  and  Gun,  (Hooper's),  paper....     30 

"  cloth....     60 

Downine's  Landscape  Gardening. ...  6  50 

Draining  for  Profit  and  Health 1  50 

Eastwood  on  Cranberry 75 

Elliott'sWestern  Fruit  Grower'sGuidel  50 

Flax  Culture .- 50 

French's  Farm  Drainage 1  50 

Field's  (Thos.  W.)  Pear  Culture 1  25 

Fuller's  Grape  Culturist 1  50 

Fuller's  Small  Fruit  Culturist 1  50 

Fuller's  Strawberry  Cnlturist 20 

Gregory  on  Squash  Culture 30 


Guenon  on  Milch  Cows 75 

Henderson's  Gardening  for  Profit. . .  1  50 
Herbert's  Hints  to  Horse-Keepers...  1  75 

Hop  Culture 40 

Hoopes  on  Evergreens 

Johnston's  Agricultural  Chemistry. .  1  75 
Johnston's  Elements  of  Agricultural 

Chemistry 1  50 

Leuchar's  How  to  Build  Hot-Houses  1  50 

Miles  on  the  Horse's  Foot 75 

Mohr  on  the  Grape  Vine 1  00 

My  Vineyard  at  Lakeview 1  25 

Norton's  Scientific  Agricult  ure 75 

Onion  Culture 20 

Our  Farm  of  Four  Acres,  paper 30 

"     cloth 60 

Pardee  on  Strawberry  Culture 75 

Peat  and  its  Uses 1  25 

Pedder's  Land  Measurer 60 

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Rural  Annual,  (Harris),  8  Nos.  bound, 

2vols each.    1  50 

Randall's  Sheep  Husbandry 1  50 

Randall's  Fine  Wool  Sheep  Husbandryl  00 

Richardson  on  the  Dog,  paper 30 

"       cloth 60 

Rivers'  Miniature  Fruit  Garden 1  00 

Saunders'  Domestic  Poultry,  paper. .     40 

"  «  -        cloth..     75 

Schenck's  Gardener's  Tex.  Book. ...     75 

Skillful  Housewife 75 

Stewart's  (John)  Stable  Book 1  50 

Thompson's  Food  of  Animals 1  00 

Tobacco  Culture 25 

Warder's  Hedges  and  Evergreens. . .  1  50 
Youatt  and  Spooner  on  the  Horse. . '.  1  50 

Youatt  and  Martin  on  Cattle 1  50 

Youatt  on  the  Hog 1  00 

Youatt  on  Sheep 1  00 


Break's  New  Book  of  Flowers. 

BY    JOSEPH    BRECK, 

P1UCTIOAL   HORTICULTURIST. 

BEAUTIFULLY   ILLUSTRATED. 

This  work,  while  preserving  scientific  accuracy,  is  written  in  a  familial 
style,  and  with  the  enthusiasm  of  a  life-long  lover  of  flowers. 

The  lessons  of  a  practical  acquaintance  with  the  subject  are  plainly 
given,  and  though  the  author  is  never  dry,  his  teachings  are  full  of 

PRACTICAL    COMMON    SENSE. 

ALL    DEPARTMENTS    OF    OUT-DOOR    GARDEBTUSTO 

*re  treated,  and  the  work  really  condenses  into  one  volume  what  is  in 
many  cases  distributed  through  several  treatises  on  Bulbs,  Annuals,  Roses,  etc. 

Bulbs.  The  cultivation  of  bulbs,  whether  in- doors  or  in  the  open 
ground,  is  clearly  described,  and  such  instructions  are  given  as  will  insure 
success  with  these  favorite  plants. 

Annuals.  All  the  finer  annuals  are  described,  and  the  peculiar 
treatment  necessary  for  each  given  in  full. 

Herbaceous  Perennials.  This  justly  favorite  class  of  plants 
is  given  here  more  at  length  than  in  any  work  with  which  we  are  acquainted. 

Bedding  Plants.  The  treatment  of  the  popular  kinds  of  bed- 
ding plants  is  given,  together  with  that  of  Dahlias,  Chrysanthemums,  and 
Buch  as  usually  fall  under  the  head  of  florist's  flowers. 

Flowering  Shrubs.  A  separate  section  is  devoted  to  the  hardy 
flowering  shrubs,  including  a  very  full  chapter  upon  the  Rose. 

We  have  no  work  which  is  so  safe  a  guide  to  the  novice  in  gardening, 
or  that  imparts  the  necessary  information  in  a  style  so  free  from  techni- 
calities. Not  the  least  interesting  part  of  the  work  is  the  author's  personal 
experience,  as  he  tells  not  only  how  he  succeeded,  but  the  mistakes  ha 
committed.  Thus  far  it  is 

"THE    BOOK    OF    FLOWERS." 
Sent  post-paid.    Price,  $1.75. 

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Broadway. 


AMERICAN     POMOLOGY. 
APPLES. 


ISy   IDoct.  JOHN    A.. 

PRESIDENT  OHIO  POMOLOGICAL  SOCIETT;  VICE-PEBSEDEXT  AXXBICAN  POXOLOGICA& 

SOCIETY. 

298    ILLUSTRATIONS. 

This  volume  has  about  750  pages,  the  first  375  of  which  are  de 
voted  to  the  discussion  of  the  general  subjects  of  propagation,  nur. 
eery  culture,  selection  and  planting,  cultivation  of  orchards,  care  of 
fruit,  insects,  and  the  like ;  the  remainder  is  occupied  with  descrip- 
tions of  apples.  With  the  richness  of  material  at  hand,  the  trouble 
was  to  decide  what  to  leave  out.  It  will  be  found  that  while  the 
old  and  standard  varieties  are  not  neglected,  the  new  and  promising 
sorts,  especially  those  of  the  South  and  West,  have  prominence. 
A  list  of  selections  for  different  localities  by  eminent  orchardists  is 
a  valuable  portion  of  the  volume,  while  the  Analytical  Index  or 
Catalogue  Raisonne,  as  the  French  would  say,  is  the  most  extended 
American  fruit  list  ever  published,  and  gives  evidence  of  a  fearful 
amount  of  labor. 

CONTENTS. 

Chapter  I.— INTRODUCTORY. 

Chapter         II.— HISTORY   OF  THE   APPLE. 

Chapter        III.— PROPAGATION. 

Buds  and  Cuttings— Grafting— Budding— The  Nursery. 

Chapter       IV.— DWARFING. 

Chapter         V — DISEASES. 

Chapter       VI THE    SITE    FOR    AN    ORCHARD. 

Chapter     VII — PREPARATION  OF  SOIL  FOR  AN  ORCHARD. 

Chapter   VIII.— SELECTION  AND   PLANTING. 

Chapter       IX.— CULTURE,  Etc. 

Chapter         X.— PHILOSOPHY   OF   PRUNING. 

Chapter       XI — THINNING. 

Chapter     XII.-RIPENING  AND  PRESERVING   FRUITS. 

Chapter  XIII  and  XIV.— INSECTS. 

Chapter     XV— CHARACTERS      OF       FRUITS      AND      THEIR 
VALUE—  TERMS   USED. 

Chapter    XVI.— CLASSIFICATION. 

Necessity  for— Basis  of— Characters— Shape— Its  Regu- 
larity—Flavor— Color— Their  several  Values,  etc.  De- 
scription of  Apples. 

Chapter XVH.— FRUIT   LISTS— CATALOGUE   AND  INDEX  OF 
FRUITS. 

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GARDENING  FOR  PROFIT, 

In  the  Market  and.  Family  Garden, 


BY  PETER  HENDERSON. 


This  is  the  first  work  on  Market  Gardening  ever  published  in  this 
country.  Its  author  is  well  known  as  a  market  gardener  of  eighteen 
years'  successful  experience.  In  this  work  he  has  recorded  this 
experience,  and  given,  without  reservation,  the  methods  necessary 
to  the  profitable  culture  of  the  commercial  or 


It  is  a  work  for  which  there  has  long  been  a  demand,  and  one 
which  will  commend  itself,  not  only  to  those  who  grow  vegetables 
for  sale,  but  to  the  cultivator  of  the 

FAMILY  GAKDEN, 

to  whom  it  presents  methods  quite  different  from  the  old  ones  gen- 
erally practiced.  It  is  an  ORIGINAL  AND  PURELY  AMERICAN  work,  and 
not  made  up,  as  books  on  gardening  too  often  are,  by  quotations 
from  foreign  authors. 

Every  thing  is  made  perfectly  plain,  and  the  subject  treated  in  all 
its  details,  from  the  selection  of  the  soil  to  preparing  the  products 
for  market. 

CONTENTS. 

Men  fitted  for  the  Business  of  Gardening. 

The  Amount  of  Capital  Required,  and 

"Working  Force  per  Acre. 

Profits  of  Market  Gardening. 

Location,  Situation,  and  Laying  Out. 

Soils,  Drainage,  and  Preparation. 

Manures,  Implements. 

"Uses  and  Management  of  Cold  Frames. 

Formation  and  Management  of  Hot-beds. 

Forcing  Pits  or  Green-houses. 

Seeds  and  Seed  Raising. 

How,  "When,  and  Where  to  Sow  Seeds. 

Transplanting,  Insects. 

Packing  of  Vegetables  for  Shipping. 

Preservation  of  Vegetables  in  "Winter. 

Vegetables,  their  Varieties  and  Cultivation. 

In  the  last  chapter,  the  most  valuable  kinds  are  described,  and 
the  culture  proper  to  each  is  given  in  detail. 

Sent   post-paid,   price  $I.5O. 
OBANGE    JUDD    &    CO.,    245    Broadway,    New-York. 


DRAINING    FOR    PROFIT, 

AND 

DRAINING    FOR    HEALTH. 

BY 

GEO.  E.  WARING,  JB., 

ENGINEER  OF  THE  DRAINAGE  OF  THE  CENTRAL  PAUK,  NEW- YORK. 


"EVERY  KEPORTED  CASE  OF  FAILURE  IK  DRAINAGE  WHICH  WE  HAVE  INVESTI- 
GATED,  HAS  RESOLVED  ITSELF  INTO   IGNORANCE,  BLUNDERING,  BAD  MANAGEMENT, 

OB  BAD  EXECUTION."—  Gtsborne. 

I  L  L  T  J  S  T  ft,  A.  T  EJ  ID  . 

CONTENTS: 

Chapter          I.— L.AND   TO  BE    DRAINED  AND    THE   REASONS 

WHY. 
Chapter        II.-KOW  DRAINS  ACT, AND  HOW  THEY  AFFECT 

THE    SOIL.. 
Chapter      III.- HOW    TO     GO    TO    WORK     TO     JL.AY     OUT     A 

SYSTEM    OF    DRAINS. 

Chapter      IV.- HOW    TO    MAKE    THE    DRAINS. 
Chapter        V.— HOW     TO     TAKE     CARE     OF     DRAINS     AND 

DRAINED    IjANDS. 

Chapter      VI.- WHAT    DRAINING   COSTS. 
Chapter    VII. -WILL    IT    PAY! 

Chapter  VIII.— HOW    TO    MAKE    DRAINING    TILES. 
Chapter      IX.-THE    RECLAIMING    OF    SAI/T    MARSHES. 
Chapter        X.— MALARIAL    DISEASES. 
Chapter      XI.-HOUSE    AND    TOWN    DRAINAGE. 


Sent  post-paid.    Price  $1.50. 

NEW-YORK: 

ORANGE    JUDD    &    CO.,    245   Broadway. 


THE 


BT 

ANDEEW  S.  FULLEE. 


NEW     AND      ENLARGED      EDITION. 


THE    STANDARD    WORK 

ON    THE    CULTIVATION    OF    THE    HARDY    GRAPE, 

AS    IT    NOT    ONLY   DISCUSSES   PRINCIPLES, 

BUT 

ILLUSTRATES    PRACTICE. 

Every   tiling    is   made    perfectly   plain,  and.   its    teach- 
ings   may    toe    followed    upon 

ONE     VINE     OB    A    VINEYARD 


The  following  are  some  of  the  tojncs  that  are  treated: 

GROWING  NEW  VARIETIES  FROM  SEED. 

PROPAGATION  BY  SINGLE  BUDS  OR  EYES. 

PROPAGATING  HOUSES  AND  THEIR  MANAGEMENT  FULLY  DESCRIBED. 

How  TO  GROW. 

CUTTINGS  IN  OPEN  AIR,  AND  now  TO  MAKE  LAYERS. 

GRAFTING  THE  GRAPE — A  SIMPLE  AND  SUCCESSFUL  METHOD. 

HYBRIDIZING  AND  CROSSING — MODE  OF  OPERATION. 

SOIL  AND  SITUATION — PLANTING  AND  CULTIVATION. 

PRUNING,  TRAINING,  AND  TRELLISES— ALL  THE  SYSTEMS  EXPLAINED. 

GARDEN  CULTURE— How  TO  GROW  VINES  IN  A  DOOR-YARD. 

INSECTS,  MILDEW,  SUN-SCALD,  AND  OTHER  TROUBLES. 

DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  VALUABLE  AND  THE  DISCARDED  VARIETIES. 


Sent  post-paid.     Price  $1.50. 


Orange    .lucid    <fc    Co.,    24:5   Broadway. 


THE 

SMALL    FRUIT    CULTURIST. 

BY 

ANDREW  S.  FULLER. 
Beautifully  Illustrated. 

We  liave  heretofore  had  no  work  especially  devoted  to  small 
fruits,  and  certainly  no  treatises  anywhere  that  give  the  information 
contained  in  this.  It  is  to  the  advantage  of  special  works  that  the 
author  can  say  all  that  he  has  to  say  on  any  subject,  and  not  be 
restricted  as  to  space,  as  he  must  be  in  those  works  that  cover  tho 
culture  of  all  fruits— great  and  small. 

This  book  covers  the  whole  ground  of  Propagating  Small  Fruits, 
their  Culture,  Varieties,  Packing  for  Market,  etc.  While  very  full  on 
the  other  fruits,  the  Currants  and  Raspberries  have  been  more  care-, 
fully  elaborated  than  ever  before,  and  in  this  important  part  of  his 
book,  the  author  has  had  the  invaluable  counsel  of  Charles  Downing. 
The  chapter  on  gathering  and  packing  the  fruit  is  a  valuable  one, 
and  in  it  are  figured  all  the  baskets  and  boxes  now  in  common  use. 
The  book  is  very  finely  and  thoroughly  illustrated,  and  makes  an 
admirable  companion  to  the  Grape  Culturist,  by  the  same  author. 

OO3VTE1VTS: 

CHAP.  I.  BARBERRY.  CHAP.  VII.  GOOSEBERRY. 

CHAP.  II.  STRAWBERRY.  CHAP.  VIII.  CORNELIAN  CHERRY. 

CHAP.  III.  RASPBERRY.  CHAP.  IX.  CRANBERRY. 

CHAP.  IV.  BLACKBERRY.  CHAP.   X.  HUCKLEBERRY. 

CHAP.  V.  DWARF  CHERRY.  CHAP.  XL  SHEPERDIA. 

CHAP.  VL  CURRANT.  CHAP.  XII.  PREPARATION  FOP, 

GATHERING  FRUIT. 


Sent  post-paid.    Price  $1.50. 
ORANGE    JUDD    &    CO.,    245    Broadway,    New- York. 


The  Miniature  Fruit  Garden; 

OR, 

THE  CULTURE  OF  PYRAMIDAL  AND  BUSH  FRUIT  TREES, 

BY  THOMAS   RIVERS. 

ILLUSTRATED. 

MR.  RIVERS  is  one  of  the  oldest  and  best  known  of  the  English  nursery- 
men  and  orchardists.  The  popularity  that  his  work  has  attained  in  Eng- 
land is  shown  by  the  fact  that  our  reprint  is  from  the  Thirteenth  London 
Edition.  This  treatise  is  mainly  devoted  to 

Dwarf  Apples  and  Pcar§. 

Nothing  is  more  gratifying  than  the  cultivation  of  dwarf  fruit  trees,  and 
this  work  tells  how  to  do  it  successfully.  These  miniature  trees  are  beauti- 
ful ornaments,  besides  being  useful  in  giving  abundant  crops  of  fruit ;  they 
can  be  grown  in 

Small  Oarden§  and  City  Yards, 

and  be  removed  without  injury,  almost  as  readily  as  a  piece  of  furniture. 
The  work  also  gives  the  manner  of  training  upon  walls  and  trellises. 

Root    Pruning 

is  fully  explained,  and  various  methods  of  protection  from  frosts  are  given. 
Dwarf  Cherries  and  Plums 

are  treated   of  as  are  other  dwarf  trees.     Directions  are  also  given  for 
growing 

Figs  and  Filberts. 

While  written  for  the  climate  of  England,  its  suggestions  are  valuable 
everywhere,  and  no  one  who  grows  dwarf  trees  should  be  without  this  little 
work,  in  which  is  condensed  the  whole  practice  of  the  author,  and  which, 
like  all  his  writings,  bears  the  marks  of  long  experience  in  the  practice  of. 
fruit  growing. 

SENT   POST   PAID.     PRICE,  $1. 

; 

ORANGE  JUDD  &.  CO.,  245  Broadway. 


COPELAND'S  COUNTRY  LIFE. 

A    COMPENDIUM 

Of 

Agricultural    and    Horticultural 

PRACTICAL      KNOWLEDGE. 

Beautifully  Illustrated. 

It  contains  Descriptions,  Hints,  Suggestions,  and  Details  of  great  value  to 
every  one  interested  in  Fruit,  Flowers,  Vegetables,  or  Farm  Crops.  It  con- 
tains 926  large  Octavo  Pages,  and  25O  Engravings.  Describing  and  Il- 
lustrating nearly  the  whole  range  of  topics  of  'interest  to  the  FARMER,  the 
GARDENER,  the  FRUIT  CULTURIST,  and  the  AMATEUR. 

It  is  adapted  not  only  to  those  owning  large  and  Elegant  Estates,  but  con- 
tains directions  for  the  best  arrangement  of  the  smallest  Plots,  down  to  the 
City  Yard,  the  Roof  or  Window  Garden,  or  the  simple  Flower  Stand.  It 
also  gives  an  abstract  of  the  Principles,  Construetion,  and  Management  of 
AQUARIUMS.  Among  numerous  other  matters  it  treats  of 

Draining,  Giving  best  methods,  estimates  of  cost,  trenches,  tiles,  etc., 
thus  enabling  almost  any  one  properly  to  perform  this  important  work. 

Cattle  are  carefully  noticed  with  reference  to  the  special  merits  of  dif- 
ferent breeds  for  dairying  or  fattening. 

Sheep  Management,  including  Breeding,  Feeding,  Prices,  Profits, 
etc.,  receives  attention,  and  a  very  full  treatise  on  the  Merinos  is  given. 

Grape  Culture  occupies  a  large  space,  embracing  the  opinions  of 
men  ia  all  parts  of  the  country,  as  to  best  sorts,  planting,  training,  diseases, 
and  general  management  for  home  use  or  marketing. 

Full  L.i§tS  of  Ornamental  Trees  and  Shrubs,  Fruits,  Flowers,  Green 
and  Hot-house  Plants,  etc.,  are  given,  with  directions  for  management  each 
month  in  the  year. 

The  Kitchen  Garden  receives  particular  attention,  with  icfer- 
ence  to  the  best  way  to  grow  and  preserve  each  kind  of  Vegetable. 

In  short,  as  its  name  indicates,  the  book  treats  of  almost  every  subject  that 
needs  consideration  by  those  living  in  the  country,  or  having  any  thing  to  do 
with  the  cultivation  of  the  soil. 


.      .      OPirioe,    SS.OO. 
N  E  W-Y  O  R  K  : 
Oirang-e     Ju<l<l     &,     Oo., 


MY  VINEYARD  AT  LAKEVIEW; 

OR, 

SUCCESSFUL    GRAPE    CULTURE. 

BY   A  WESTERN   GRAPE   GROWER. 

ILLUSTRATED. 

To  any  one  who  wishes  to  grow  grapes,  whether  a  single  vine  or  a  vine- 
yard, this  book  is  full  of  valuable  teachings.  The  author  gives  not  only  his 
success,  but,  what  is  of  quite  as  much  importance,  his  failure.  It  tells  just 
what  the  beginner  in  grape  culture  wishes  to  know,  with  the  charm  that 
always  attends  the  relation  of  personal  experience. 

It  is  especially  valuable  as  giving  an  account  of  the  processes  actually 
followed  in 

CELEBRATED    GRAPE    REGIONS 

in  Western  New-York  and  on  the  shores  and  islands  of  Lake  Erie. 

This  book  is  noticed  by  a  writer  in  the  Horticulturist  for  August  last  aa 
follows  :  "  Two  works  very  different  in  character  and  value  have  just  been 
published,  and  seem  to  demand  a  passing  notice.  The  better  and  less  pre- 
tentious of  the  two  is  '  Mr  VINEYARD  AT  LAKEVIEW,'  a  charming  little  book 
that  professes  to  give  the  actual  experience  of  a  western  grape  grower,  de- 
tailing not  only  his  successes,  but  his  blunders  and  failures.  It  is  written 
in  a  pleasant  style,  without  any  attempt  at  display,  and  contains  much  ad- 
vice that  will  prove  useful  to  a  beginner — the  more  useful  because  derived 
from  the  experience  of  a  man  who  had  no  leisure  for  fanciful  experiments, 
but  has  been  obliged  to  make  his  vineyard  support  himself  and  his  family." 


Written  in  a  simple  and  attractive  style,  and  relating  the  experience  of  one  who  fe'.t 
Ms  way  along  into  the  successful  cultivation  of  a  vineyard  in  Ohio. — Mass.  Ploughman. 

It  is  the  experience  of  a  practical  grape  grower,  and  not  the  theory  of  an  experi- 
menter.—-Bath  Daily  Sentinel  and  Times. 

It  has  no  superior  as  an  attractive  narrative  of  country  life. — Hartford  Daily  Post. 

Many  books  have  been  written  on  the  grape,  but  this  is  the  only  work  that  gives  an 
account  of  grape  growing  as  actually  practiced  at  the  successful  vineyards  in  the  grape 
region  of  the  West,  and  will  be  welcomed  by  a  large  class  of  readers. — New-Bedford 
Standard. 

This  little  volume  contains,  in  an  attractive  form,  and  in  clear  and  concise  language, 
just  the  information  needed  to  enable  any  one  to  become  thoroughly  posted  up  in  this 
delightful  and  profitable  branch  of  horticulture.—  Vermont  Farmer. 

Just  the  manual  for  a  beginner,  by  one  who  says  "he  is  well  rewarded  in  the  success 
attained."  Adding,  "It  might  have  been  reached  in  half  the  time,  had  I  possessed  the 
knowledge  imparted  to  the  reader  of  this  book.'  •  -Boston  Cultivator. 

Sent  Post-paid       Price,  $1.50. 
ORANGE  JUDD  &.  CO.,  245  Broadway,  New-York. 


Downing's  Landscape  Gardening  and  Rural 
Architecture, 

Price,  $6.50. 

The  most  complete  and  valuable  work  ever  issued  on  Landscape  Gardening  In 
North- Am  erica,  for  the  Improvement  of  Country  Residences;  containing  full  Direc- 
tions for  every  tiling  connected  with  Laying  out  and  adorning  the  Rural  Home,  tiie 
Grounds,  the  Gardens,  the  Buildings,  the  Trees  and  Plants,  etc.,  with  principles  of 
taste  so  stated  as  to  adapt  the  work  to  all  classes.  Splendidly  Illustrated  with  many 
Steel  and  line  Wood  Engravings.  By  the  late  A.  J.  DOWNING.  New  Edition,  En- 
larged, Xewly  Illustrated  and  Revised,  with  Supplement,  by  HENBY  WINTHBOP  SAB- 
GXNT.  Octavo,  534  pp.  Extra  cloth,  gilt,  beveled  boards. 

This  Edition  contains  a  Splendid  new  portrait  on  Steel,  of  Mr.  DOWNING. 


HORSES. 

Herbert's  Hints  to  Horse-Keepers,  -  -  -  (New  Edition.) 

Price,  $1.75. 

This  Is  the  best  practical  work  on  the  Horse,  prepared  m  this  country.  A  COMPLKT* 
MANUAL  for  HORSEMEN,  embracing:  How  to  Breed  a  Horse;  How  to  Buy  a  Horse; 
How  to  Break  a  Horse;  How  to  Use  a  Horse;  How  to  Feed  a  Horse;  How  to  Physic  a 
Horse  (Allopathy  or  Homoeopathy) ;  How  to  Groom  a  Horse ;  How  to  Drive  a  Horse ; 
How  to  Ride  a  Horse,  etc.,  and  Chapters  on  MCLES  and  PONIES,  etc.  By  the  late 
HENRY  WILLIAM  HERBEET  (Frank  Forrester).  Beautifully  Illustrated  throughout. 
Cloth,  l^ino.,  4'£>  pp. 

BEES. 

Quinby's   Mysteries  of    Bee-Keeping   Explained. 

Price,  $1.50. 

Newly  written  throughout,  containing  the  results  of  thirty-five  years  of  successful 
experience.  with/i/H,  plain,  and  practical  Directions  for  all  details  of  JJee  Culture; 
including  also  a  Description  and  Manner  of  Using  the  Movable  Comb  and  Box  Hives, 
with  the  most  approved  modes  of  Propagating  and  Treating  the  Italian  Bee,  etc.,  «tc.. 
with  numerous  Illustrations,  By  M.  QCINBY,  Practical  Bee-Keeper. 

NEW-YORK: 

PUBLISHED  BY 

ORANGE    JUDD    &    CO 


THE    AMERICAN 


FOR     1868. 


A.    Y ear-Book 
Wanted   by  Everybody. 

This  volume  is  now  ready,  and  contains  much  of  interest  to 
every  agriculturist.  Besides  the  general  record  of  agricultural 
progress,  it  has  a  valuable  article  on 

Factory   Dairy   Practice, 

By  GARDNER  B.  WEEKS,  Esq.,  Secretary  of  the  American  Dairy- 
men's Association,  in  which  he  discusses  the  reasons  for  the  best 
practice  and  the  most  approved  apparatus,  buildings,  etc.,  fully  il- 
lustrated, and  is  equally  interesting  to  the  practical  dairyman  and 
to  the  novice. 

Sewers   and    Eartli-CIosets 

In  their  relations  to  Agriculture,  by  Col.  GEO.  E.  WARING,  Jr. 
Winter   Wheat, 

Describing,  with  engravings,  new  and  valuable  varieties  by  JOSEPH 
HARRIS  and  JOHN  JOHNSTON  ;  an  article  upon 

Scytnes   and   Cradles, 

By  JOHN  W.  DOTTGLAS,  (fully  illustrated ;)  also  articles  on  Horse- 
Breaking  and  on  Bitting  Colts,  by  SAM'L  F.  HEADLT,  Esq.,  (il- 
lustrated;) on  Recent  Progress  in  Agricultural  Science,  by  Prof 
S.  W.  JOHNSON  ;  on  Commercial  Fertilizers,  Veterinary  Medicine 
and  Jurisprudence,  Progress  of  Invention  Affecting  Agriculture, 
Valuable  Tables  for  Farmers  and  others,  etc. 

It  is  intended  that  the  work  shall  be  practical,  excellent  in  the 
beauty  of  its  illustrations,  and  in  its  adaptation  to  the  wants  of 
American  Farmers,  superior  to  anything  of  the  kind  heretofore 
published. 

In  its  general  features  it  is  like  the  Agricultural  Annual  for  1887, 
containing  an  Almanac  and  Calendar,  and  there  will  be  added  a 
list  of  dealers  in  Agricultural  Implements,  Seeds,  etc.  Sent  post- 
paid. Price,  fancy  paper  covers,  50  cts. ;  cloth,  75  cts. 

ORANGE   JTJDD   &   CO., 

245   Broadway,   New-York. 


THE    AMERICAN 


FOR     1868. 


.A.    Year-Book 

FOR    EVERY    HOME. 

The  second  number  of  this  serial  is  now  ready.  It  contains  a 
popular  record  of  horticultural  progress  during  the  past  year, 
besides  valuable  articles  from 

EMINENT    HORTICULTURISTS. 

Among  those  who  contributed  to  its  pages  are 


HON.  MARSHALL  P.  WILDER, 
PETER  HENDERSON, 
THOMAS  MEEHAN, 
JOSIAH  HOOPES, 
WM.  S.  CARPENTER, 
GEORGE  W.  CAMPBELL, 
DOCTOR  VAN  KETJREN, 


DOCTOR  JOHN  A.  WARDEB, 
S.  B.  PARSONS, 
JAS.  J.  H.  GREGORY, 
GEORGE  SUCH, 
ANDREW  S.  FULLER, 
JOHN  SAUL, 
JAMES  VICE, 


and  other  well-known  pomological  and  floricultural  writers. 

The  engravings,  which  have  been  prepared  expressly  for  the 
work,  are  numerous,  and  make  it  the 

MOST     BEAUTIFULLY     ILLUSTRATED 

work  of  its  kind  ever  published  in  this  or  any  other  country.  It 
contains  Tables,  Lists  of  Nurserymen,  Seedsmen,  and  Florists,  and 
other  useful  matters  of  reference.  Sent  post-paid.  Price,  fancy 
paper  covers,  50  cts  ;  cloth,  75  cts. 

ORANGE   JTJDD   &  CO., 

245    Broadway,    New- York. 


Q  [Established  In  1842.] 

A  Good,  Cheap,  and  very  Valuable  Paper 
Every  Man,  Woman  and  Child, 

IN  CITY,  VILLAGE  and   COUNTRY, 

THE 

AMERICA!   AGRICULTURIST, 

FOR    THE 

FARM,  GARDEN  AND  HOUSEHOLD, 

Including  a  Special   Department  of  Interesting  and 

Instructive  Reading  for  CHILDREN  and  YOUTH. 

The  Agriculturist  is  a  largo  periodical  of  T7iirty-two  pages,  quarto,  not  octavo, 
beautifully  printed,  and  filled  with  plain,  practical,  reliable,  original  matter,  includ- 
ing hundreds  of  beautiful  and  instructive  Engravings  iu  every  annual  volume. 

It  contains  each  month  a  Calendar  of  Operations  to  be  performed  on  the  Farm, 
In  the  Orchard  and  Garden,  in  and  around  the  Dwelling,  etc. 

The  thousands  of  hints  and  suggestions  given  in  every  volume  are  prepared  by  prac- 
tical, intelligent  working  men,  who  know  what  they  talk  and  write  about.  The 
articles  are  thoroughly  edited,  and  every  way  reliable. 

The  Household  Department  Is  valuable  to  every  Housekeeper,  affording 
very  many  useful  hints  and  directions  calculated  to  lighten  and  facilitate  in-door  work. 

The  Department  for  Children  and  Youth,  is  prepared  with  special  care 
not  only  to  amuse,  but  also  to  inculcate  knowledge  and  sound  moral  principles. 

Terms*—  The  circulation  of  the  American  Agriculturist,  (about  15O,OOO)  is  so 
large  that  it  can  be  furnished  at  the  low  price  of  $1.50  a  year  ;  four  copies,  one  year,  for 
$5;  ten  copies,  one  year,  for  $12;  twenty  or  more  copies,  one  year.  $1  each;  single 
copies,  15  ceats  each.  An  extra  copy  to  the  one  furnishing  a  club  of  ten  or  twenty. 


IT    A. 

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Publishers  &  Proprietors, 
'^No.  245   Broadway,  New- York  City.^ 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


6 


LD  21-100m-9,'48(B399sl6)476 


YB  46515 


